Strategic Management of Challenges Facing Entrepreneurship Education at University
Chapter One
Objectives of the Study
The purpose of the study was to examine how the challenges of entrepreneurship education was managed in the selected Universities.
Specific Objectives
- To examine how the challenges of entrepreneurship education was managed in the selected Universities in Akwa Ibom state
- To establish the interventions put in place by schools to promote entrepreneurship
- To determine challenges universities faced in the management of entrepreneurial education
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
This chapter presents the review of literature regarding the matter discussed; presenting some views of other scholars on the topic of strategic management of challenges facing entrepreneurship education will be discussed.
Conceptual Framework
Conceptual framework refers to the tool in research that aims at enabling the researcher develop awareness and understanding of the situation under scrutiny and to communicate it to the reader (Kombo and Tromp, 2006). A well-formed conceptual framework enables the researcher show how the basic concepts and constructs interact with each other in the actual setting and experiences within which the research study is conducted. Proper strategic management of challenges facing entrepreneurship education in schools can bring about self-reliance to the school and more beneficial to learners when they are out of school. Activities aimed at promotion of entrepreneurship education must be encouraged by school management. The challenges faced by Universities in the strategic management of challenges facing entrepreneurship education should highlighted and addressed. The involvement of learners and the outcomes of good strategic management of challenges facing entrepreneurship education can help them become self-employed when they leave school.
Theoretical Framework
Management Theory
Contemporary theories of management tend to account for and help interpret the rapidly changing nature of today‟s organizational environments. This theory deals with how management attends to issues affecting the smooth running of the organisation. In order to have a clear understanding of the subject matter with regards to the research questions the study employed a classical management theory based on the writings of Henry Fayol a management thinker. Henri Fayol (1841–1925) is often described as the „father‟ of modern management. He had been managing director of a large French mining company, and was concerned with efficiency at an organisational level rather than at the level of the task. Drawing on his experience of what worked well in an organisation, he developed a general theory of business administration.
He first broke management down into five distinct elements:
- forecasting and planning – looking into the future and drawing up action plans
- organising – building up the material and human structure of the undertaking
- commanding – maintaining activity amount personnel
- coordinating – unifying and harmonising activity and effort
- controlling – ensuring that things conform to rules and instructions
This is a logical, rational and normative analysis of what needs to be done. But this was not a wholly abstract piece of theorising. Fayol was writing on the basis of his own, highly practical experience of management. On the basis of the five elements of management, he then proceeded to identify what he presented as 14 principles for improving managerial effectiveness. With this theory if there, is proper planning, organising and coordination in an organisation there is always efficiency. Management of Universities requires proper planning by those in the driving seat. Proper organising of activities within the school is important and coordination if efficiency is to be attained by school management‟.
Strategic management of challenges facing entrepreneurship education
Entrepreneurship is the driving force of every market economy (Davies, 2001:32) whereby the entrepreneur aims at making a profit through the mobilization and coordination of all factors of production. Entrepreneurship is revitalizing and restructuring economies and it involves having a vision, creativity and innovation (Gouws, 2002:42). Small businesses in the United States of America are thriving, in providing over 20 million jobs in the last decade. Entrepreneurship is responsible for almost zero unemployment in countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore (Gouws, 2002:42). The economic recession and high unemployment rates suffered by many industrialized countries have revived their interest in Entrepreneurship (Garavan & O‟Cinneide, 1994:3). This has tended to increase the involvement of politicians and policy makers to focus on entrepreneurship as the answer to curbing unemployment and increasing economic growth (Garavan & O‟Cinneide, 1994:13).
With entrepreneurship being the focus of every economy, entrepreneurship education too has gained attention in these economies. Entrepreneurship education is defined by Isaacs, Visser, Friedrich and Brijlal, (2007: 614) as a structured transmission of entrepreneurial skills, which includes the concepts and mental awareness used by individuals during the conception and management of their businesses. Researchers such as Antonites and Van Vuuren (2005:257) agree that entrepreneurial education stimulates and facilitates entrepreneurial activities. Entrepreneurship education enhances the development of skills, behaviours and attitudes needed to create jobs and generate economic growth (The World Economic Forum, 2013).
Managing is one of the most important human activities. From the time human beings began forming social organizations to accomplish aims and objectives they could not accomplish as individuals, managing has been essential to ensure the coordination of individual efforts. As society continuously relied on group effort, and as many organized groups have become
large, the task of managers has been increasing in importance and complexity. Henceforth, managerial theory has become crucial in the way managers manage complex organizations (Fayol‟s management theory). Based on the three main concepts associated with entrepreneurship Education them being the behaviour of the entrepreneur, the processes to be undertaken and the results, there is need to device and enhance management skills to effectively coordinate the three concept with a goal of producing a student with competences in entrepreneurship. It is important to look at how entrepreneurship education is managed across the globe. According to Parker (2009) entrepreneurship is an integral part of economic change and growth. Yet entrepreneurship has only recently come to be regarded as a field of study. A complete view of it recognizes its multi-disciplinary academic underpinnings, drawing from economics, finance, business studies, psychology and other subjects. This heterogeneous provenance reflects the multi-dimensional nature of entrepreneurship, which partly contributes to the elusiveness of the entrepreneur.
Entrepreneurship education should be part of economics education instruction as Greene & Rice (2007:157) state that the child must be exposed to economics concepts that form a cognitive domain in which entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship can be developed. It is in the economic environment that the entrepreneur has relevance. It is important that schools and adult basic education equip young people for the world of work and the world of finance that they will need to enter, either as employees or employers (Maas et al., 2008:164). In my view the knowledge and skills learner acquire after leaving school is enough for them to start business instead expecting government to provide them with jobs. Acs and Amores (2008:309) state, „„Economists have come to recognize the input completing and gap filling capacities of potential entrepreneurial innovation and growth and the significant contribution of innovation and growth to prosperity and economic welfare”. If we accept the need to increase entrepreneurial activities within our economy as an entrepreneurial objective through the use of curriculum materials that discover and develop entrepreneurial attributes, thereby increasing the pool of entrepreneurial talent, we must build a framework in which these curriculums reside (Kent, 1990:157).
The recognition of the importance of the entrepreneur and the necessity of the markets in which the entrepreneur operates has led many countries to work on perfecting their markets by eliminating barriers to entrepreneurship and other market failures (ACS & Amores, 2008:309).
It is advisable that governments everywhere should intervene indirectly to improve the enabling environment for entrepreneurship and foster an entrepreneurship culture which must change the mind set of society. Such interventions, referred to by Levie and Autio (2008) as framework conditions, could include:
CHAPTER THREE
Introduction
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This chapter of the dissertation describes the methodology that was engaged in conducting this study. It considered the following aspects of research; research design, target population, study sample, sampling procedure, instruments for data collection, procedure for data collection, data analysis, and ethical considerations.
Research Design
The researcher of this study utilized the case study research design. This case study used a qualitative approach to collect data. Qualitative approach was used in this study because it provided room for flexibility through verbal explanation (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994) Kombo and Tromp (2006) clarify that qualitative research is a form of research that involves description to the data obtained. This mode of research is more preferable for this study because the researcher needed to collect data from a small population using a semi structured interviews. Case study design is more appropriate because this study was about fact findings and analysis of issues in detail. The collected data was in its natural setting and from specific areas of Uyo schools.
Study Population
Target population is the actual population to which a researcher would like to generalize findings (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2000). It is an entire group of persons or elements that have at least one thing in common (Kombo and Tromp, 2006). In particular, the target population of this study was five head teachers from the selected schools, five practicing teachers offering practical subjects and fifteen learners from each of the selected schools in Uyo. In addition learners were picked as follows; five from grade ten, five grade eleven and five grade twelve. The reasons for selecting these groups for the study was because they were the ones involved in the management, teaching and learning entrepreneurship education.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION OF FINDINGS
Introduction
In this chapter, results are presented based on specific objectives of the study. They are presented as the way they were captured from the respondents.
CHAPTER FIVE
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Introduction
This chapter presents the conclusions and recommendations based on empirical findings in chapter four.
Conclusions
The study has shown that entrepreneurship education is offered through the practical subjects such as design and technology, fashion and fabrics, agricultural science, sports and physical education in Nigeria while in Austria it is offered through Geography and Economics. These are the subjects that are theory based and have a practical component for the Nigerian situation. Our area of concern is that of the practical part where the knowledge and skills acquired from school arrangement can be applied by learners after they leave school. They must be able to start their own businesses instead of looking to government for employment. Once the mindset of these learners changes from that of looking for employment from government to that of self-employment then we expect the economy of the country to improve. Entrepreneurs contribute to the economic development of the country. It is important that government pumps a lot of funding to small medium and micro enterprise as this group has a great impact to the improvement of the economy.
This study concludes that the negative attitude by some head teachers was real as it evident from the respondents. Releasing funds for practical subjects was not easy while non- practical subjects received much attention. Also lack of interest among the learners is another sad part, government is trying to promote the subject with meager resources of late modern equipment was supplied to a few schools but very few pupils are interested in the subject.
Recommendations
Entrepreneurship education is recognized as vehicle for economic development of any country in the world. It is for this reason that governments around the world have seen the importance entrepreneurship education and pumping huge sums of money just to try and support this sector. There is need for Ministry of General Education to put deliberate training programs for head teachers so that they can see the importance and start appreciating the subject. In view of these facts, and based on the findings of the study, the following are the recommendations that Government and head teachers can observe;
- Government should start releasing school grants to schools on time and it should increase funding since prices of commodities have gone
- Head teachers should have a lot of sensitization meetings and workshops in order for them to appreciate the entrepreneurship education.
- School managements at various levels should be encouraged to initiate activities that are aimed at promoting entrepreneurship education.
- All schools should have careers day at least once per year where successful entrepreneurs can be called and have talks with learners on how they had excelled in their businesses.
- Government together with head teachers must start planning on how to buy modern equipment for entrepreneurship subject instead of relying on obsolete
- Government should always deploy more teachers in entrepreneurship subjects especially in rural schools.
- Head teachers should have a reward policy for both teachers who produce 100% pass rate and pupils who score high marks in entrepreneurship subjects as a way of encouraging more learners to take the
- Entrepreneurship education should be compulsory to all secondary school ” Apparently worried by the soaring unemployment rate in Nigeria, declining per capita income, youths restiveness in various parts of the country, the Federal government directed „ all education institutions in the country to run entrepreneurship studies programme as a compulsory course for all students irrespective of their disciplines with effect from 2007/2008 academic session. “(Akojie, 2009). In recognition of the importance of Vocational Subjects, every institution of learning will be required to offer Vocational Subjects as part of their curriculum, (Nigeria curriculum framework, 2013). Comparing the two countries the subject is compulsory.
Summary
Chapter 6 ends with the outcomes of the research and offers suggestions for improvements of entrepreneurship education in Universities. The chapter closes with recommended areas for future research as well as on how to improve this field of study. This study found that entrepreneurship education is offered in Universities through practical subjects, thus entrepreneurial knowledge is being developed. However, the study also found out that despite teaching this subject there is lack of interest among learners to do the subject and even head teachers have negative attitude towards the subject. Thus, the study concluded that various changes to the entrepreneurship education curriculum are required to achieve the goal of entrepreneurship education. More resources should be channelled to education sector so that modern equipment can be procured by schools. In addition government should go back to old system where it was the responsibility of government to supply text books to schools
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