The Challenges of Entrepreneurship in Home and Rural Economics Education
Chapter One
Purpose of the Study
The main purpose of this study is to investigate the challenges facing entrepreneurship education in universities in North Central State of Nigeria. Specifically, the study sought to:
- Find out the threats to Entrepreneurship Education in universities in North Central State of Nigeria.
- Ascertain the weaknesses of Entrepreneurship Education in universities in North Central State of Nigeria
- Determine the opportunities of Entrepreneurship Education in universities in North Central State of Nigeria.
- Investigate the strengths of Entrepreneurship Education in universities in North Central State of Nigeria.
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
This chapter reviewed related literature under the following subheadings: conceptual framework, theoretical framework, reviews of empirical studies and summary of literature review.
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Concept of Management
Every functional higher education system must strive to harness its human and non-human material resources towards the realization of its goals and objectives. In Nigeria, the need to refocus on resource management for effective instruction at the tertiary education level has become inevitable. Ogbonnaya (2003) argues that, the concept of management has pluralistic connotations. Some people refer to it as a group of people in an organization. Others see it as a process demanding the performance of a specific function. According to Ajayi and Ayodele (2004), it is the process of using a company’s resources in the most efficient way possible. These resources include tangible resources such as goods and equipment, financial resources, and labour resources such as employees.
Management as a social or interactional process, for Peretomode (1991) involves a sequence of coordinated events – planning, organizing, coordinating and controlling or leading – in order to use available resources to achieve a desired outcome in the fastest and most efficient way. Ogunu and Mwadiani (2005) also sees it as the coordination of all the resources of an organization through the process of planning, organizing, directing and controlling in order to attain organizational objectives. Mgbekem (2004) sees it as the guidance, leadership and control of the efforts of people toward some common objectives.
Ibukun (1997) thus, present management as a set of activities which is primarily concerned with planning, organizing, staffing, controlling and coordinating. It connotes a form of human engineering crucially concerned with leadership, capacity to produce and nourish ideas, to stimulate thought, motivate action, introduce and manage resources and change in any sector. Resser (as cited in Babalola, 2004) opines that management is the utilization of physical and human resources through cooperative efforts and it is accomplished by performing the function of planning, organizing, staffing directing and controlling on the other hand.
It can be deduced from the above definition that, management is very germane to any organization or institution. For this reason, Obi (2003) defined management as the universal process of efficiently getting activities completed with and through other people. This process involves planning, organizing, leading and controlling activities that take place in order to accomplish objectives. Management is therefore, a universal practice, and is also of universal importance. It is said to commence immediately two people agree to cooperate to undertake a task. It is for this reason that Oboegbulem (2004, p.67) posits that:
Management is inevitable in any given situation where a piece of work has to be done, and this piece of work needs more than one person to accomplish it. We are involved in management behaviour when we co-operate with other people to accomplish such objectives as erecting a community town hall, constructing and managing schools, churches, hospitals, vehicles and assembling plants.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHOD
This chapter presents and explains the research procedures including the design of the study, the area of the study, the population of the study, sample and sampling techniques, instrument for data collection, validation of the instrument, reliability of the instrument, methods of data collection and method of data analysis.
Design of the Study
This study adopts a descriptive survey design. According to Ali (2006, p.21) descriptive survey studies are mainly concerned with describing events as they are without any manipulation of what is being observed. For Ali, any study which seeks merely to find out “what is” and describes it is a descriptive study. Such studies use questionnaire as an instrument for data collection. The above design was considered appropriate for the study because the challenges affecting the implementation of entrepreneurship education programme in tertiary institutions in Anambra state of Nigeria was studied and described using a self-report questionnaire.
Population of the Study
The population of the study is 149 respondents, comprising of 136 EEd lecturers, thirteen (13) EEd coordinators in the thirteen universities. The use of the coordinators and lecturers is due to the fact that they have direct relationship with the management of universities.
CHAPTER FOUR
RESULTS
This chapter shows the results of data analysis for the study based on the research questions and hypotheses that guided the study.
CHAPTER FIVE
DISCUSSION OF RESULT, IMPLICATION, RECOMMENDATIONS, CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDIES
In this chapter, the discussion of major findings of the study, the education implications, recommendations, suggestions for further study and summary of the study are presented.
Discussion of the Findings
The discussion took cognizance of the four (4) research questions and hypotheses formulated for the study.
- The threats to Entrepreneurship Education in universities in North Central State of Nigeria.
- The weaknesses of Entrepreneurship Education in universities in North Central State of Nigeria.
- The opportunities of Entrepreneurship Education in universities in North Central State of Nigeria.
- The strengths of Entrepreneurship Education in universities in North Central State of Nigeria.
Educational Implications of the Findings
From the findings of this study one can deduce some far-reaching educational implications for universities authorities, government, policy makers and Nigeria University Commission (NUC), lecturers and students. The study provides empirical evidence on the strength of entrepreneurship education in universities which includes: provision of funds for the procurement of instructional materials; availability of fund for in-service training; the existence of relative peace among the host communities and universities and high enrolment of students for EED programme. These findings have implications for firms and industries within the states to make themselves readily available to accept students of EED programme for industrial attachments.
The finding on opportunities of entrepreneurship education in universities includes that, the course involves hand-on learning-by-doing activities; the courses encourage creative thinking; and students from all backgrounds are enrolled into EED programme. The implications are that if really the objectives of the programme are to be actualized, sufficient resources have to be deployed. The finding also shows to a large extent that universities face some threats to entrepreneurship education programmes. This implies that, there is the need for the government to make it possible for staff to attend workshops and seminars; decrease the cost of university education; recruit more lecturers to avoid excess workload and to increase budgeting allocation to universities to enhance their performance.
Recommendations
The following recommendations have been proffered based on the findings and implications of the study:
- The universities authorities should make provision for lecturers to go for workshops or seminars so as to be exposed to current trends in EED programme.
- The Federal government of Nigeria should maintain a policy aimed at provide adequate funding for entrepreneurship in home and rural economics education
- A supervisory team are to be set to take the responsibility of maintaining a judicious expenditure of such funds. In light of this, government should set up a blueprint on punishment to offenders on misappropriation of entrepreneurship education fund.
- University authorities should equipped entrepreneurial centres to expose lecturers and students to practical aspects of EED.
- Firms and industries should be more willing to accept students for industrial training as this will strengthen the students’ interest in entrepreneurship education programme.
- Additional qualified lecturers should be employed in universities for the EED programme so as to reduce the workload of the lecturers.There should be intensified efforts in the effective supervision, monitoring and evaluation of the EED programme across universities to ensure high performance and productivity.
Limitations of the Study
This study is not without certain obvious limitations. Given that it was a survey study, the validity of the results for generalization depends much on the sincerity and honesty of the respondents which the researcher might not guarantee.
Summary of the Study
The study investigated challenges facing entrepreneurship education in universities, Anambra state Nigeria. Four research questions and four null hypotheses guided the study. A descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. The population consisted of all the 13 entrepreneurship education coordinators and 136 EEd lecturers. There was no sample for the study given the size of the population and as such the study sample was 149 respondents. A questionnaire titled “entrepreneurship education strategic management questionnaire (EEDSMQ) » was designed by the researcher and validated by three experts; two from Administration and Planning and one from Measurement and Evaluation. The internal consistency of the instrument was established using Cronbach’s Alpha technique. Reliability coefficients for the cluster were as follows; cluster A: 0.76, cluster B: 0.78, cluster C: 0.76 and cluster D: 0.75.These gave an overall reliability score of 0.76alpha.
Mean and standard deviation was used to answer the research questions that guided the study; while t-test statistic was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Results show that the threats to entrepreneurship in home and rural economics education includes: staff do not attend workshops and seminars; increase in the cost of university education; lecturers have excess workload and budgeting allocation to universities is decreasing year after year, among others.. Results show that there is no significant difference between the mean responses of lecturers and coordinators on the threats to entrepreneurship in home and rural economics education. The weaknesses of entrepreneurship in home and rural economics education includes: lack of exposure to practical; lack of fund to finance acquired skills; and lack of constant power supply, among others. The study also found out that there is no significant difference between the mean responses of lecturers and coordinators on the weaknesses to entrepreneurship in home and rural economics education. In other words, lecturers and coordinators have similar views on the weaknesses to entrepreneurship in home and rural economics education.
Furthermore, results show that the opportunities of entrepreneurship in home and rural economics education include: the course involves hand-on learning-by-doing activities; the courses encourage creative thinking; and students from all backgrounds are enrolled into EED programme, among others. It was confirmed that there is no significant difference between the mean responses of lecturers and coordinators on the opportunities of entrepreneurship in home and rural economics education. Results show that the strength of entrepreneurship in home and rural economics education includes: providing funds for the procurement of instructional materials; availability of fund for in-service training; there exist relative peace among the host communities and universities and there is high enrolment of students for EED programme, among others. Both lecturers and coordinators have similar views on the strengths of entrepreneurship education challenges in the Universities. In other words, there is no significant difference between the mean responses of lecturers and coordinators on the strengths of entrepreneurship in home and rural economics education.
Several recommendations were made based on the findings and the implications of the study. Some of the recommendations include that: the universities authorities should make provision for lecturers to go for workshops or seminars so as to be exposed to current trends in EED programme; the Federal government of Nigeria should maintain a policy aimed at making adequate fund available for entrepreneurship in home and rural economics education; and a supervisory team should be set to take the responsibility of maintaining a judicious expenditure of such funds.
REFERENCES
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