Entrepreneurship Education for Economic Empowerment of Out-of-school Youths in Enugu State
CHAPTER ONE
Purpose of the Study
The general purpose of this study is to investigate entrepreneurship education on economic empowerment of out-of-school youths in Enugu State. Specifically, the study sought to:
- Identify the types of entrepreneurship education programmes for economic empowerment of out-of-school youths in Enugu state.
- Determine the extent to which entrepreneurship education enhanced production potentials of out-of-school youths in Enugu state.
- Determine the extent to which entrepreneurship education enhanced skill acquisition among out-of-school youths in Enugu state.
- Determine the extent to which entrepreneurship education enhanced marketing potentials of out-of-school youths in Enugu State.
- Ascertain the factors militating against the provisions of entrepreneurial education for economic empowerment of out-of-school youths in Enugu state.
- Examine the strategies for enhancing entrepreneurship education provision for economic empowerment of out-of-school youths in Enugu State
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
The related literature will be reviewed under the following sub-headings:
Conceptual Framework
- Concept of Entrepreneurship Education
- Concept of Economic empowerment
- Concept of Out-of-School Youths
- Types of Entrepreneurship Programmes
- Extent to which entrepreneurship education enhance skill acquisition of out-of-school youths.
- Extent to which entrepreneurship education enhance production potentials of out- of-school youths.
- Extent to which entrepreneurship education enhance marketing potentials of out-of-school youths.
- Factors militating against the provisions of entrepreneurial education for out-of-school youths.
- Strategies for enhancing entrepreneurship education provision for the out-of-school youths.
Theoretical Framework
- Human Capital theory
- Risk Taking Theory
Review of Related Empirical Studies
Summary of Literature Review
Conceptual Framework
The following concepts will be reviewed under this section of the literature review. They are; Entrepreneurship Education, Economic Empowerment and Out-of-school Youths.
Concept of Entrepreneurship Education
The term entrepreneurship has been associated with several activities concerned with the establishment and operations of business enterprises (Gibson, 2011). According to Ugorji (2009), entrepreneurship has to do with encouraging and inspiring the people (especially the youths) on how to be independent both in thinking and being creative in business activities. Business being an economic activity that man engages himself in order to satisfy his needs requires planning for and managing in order to ensure effectiveness. From a micro perspective, Sexton and Bowen (2007) see entrepreneurship as the creation of business plan, cases and lectures. Likewise, from technological perspective, entrepreneurship is referred to as setting up new enterprise by individuals or corporations to exploit technological innovations. It can further be described as the commercialization of emerging techno-logical discoveries or innovations.
More so, Obele (2009) in his contribution, believe that entrepreneurship is a style of business leadership that involves identifying high-potential, technology-in-pensive, commercial opportunities, gathering resources such as talents and capitals, and managing rapid growth and significant risk using principled decision-making skills. He precisely defined the term as the process by which entrepreneurs assemble organizational resources, technical systems and the strategies used by entrepreneurial firms to pursue opportunities. Aderemi (2010) positioned entrepreneurship as being needed to make full use of the knowledge of science and technology currently available in meeting market needs, thereby making the country in question more productive and more competitive internationally. These suggest the necessary involvement of a process of industrial innovation in the states’ area of strength and endowment to generate productivity and ensure economic empowerment. Entrepreneurship is therefore, a key priority area with the potential to stimulate job and wealth creation in an innovative and independent way. According to Ekekwe (2006) entrepreneurship provides young people across the globe with valuable life skills and tools to empower them to build sustainable and prosperous future for themselves and their societies at large. In essence, Entrepreneurship is the willingness and ability of an individual to seek out investment opportunities, establish, and run an enterprise successfully. Expatiating more on the meaning of entrepreneurship, Stevenson (2013) see it as the ability to create and build something from practically nothing. It involves initiating, doing, achieving, risk-taking, and building an enterprise. Enterprise here means resourcefulness, initiative, drive, imagination, enthusiasm, zest, dash, ambition, energy, vitality, boldness, daring, audacity, courage, get up, and go (Kanothi, 2011) This spirit of entrepreneurship is required for the overall economic growth of any nation, especially, developing ones like Nigeria. This is in line with the view of Ojeifo (2013) who stated that entrepreneurship is the willingness and the ability of an individual or a firm or an organization to identify an environmental change and exploit such an opportunity to produce goods and services for public consumption.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHOD
This chapter discussed the research method that was used in carrying out the study. This encompasses: The Design of the Study, Area of the Study, Population of the Study, Sample and Sampling Techniques, Instrument for Data Collection, Validation of Instrument, Reliability of the Instrument, Procedure for Data Collection and Method of Data analysis.
Design of the Study
The researcher used descriptive survey research design in carrying out this study. Nworgu (2006) stated that descriptive survey research design is the type of research design in which a group of people or items are studied by collecting and analyzing data from a sample considered to be representative of the entire group. The design is considered appropriate for this study as it seeks to elicit data from the respondents on entrepreneurship education for economic empowerment of out-of-school youths in Enugu State.
Area of the Study
The study was carried out in Enugu State. Geographically, Enugu State is located in the South-East zone of Nigeria with its capital city situated in Enugu. It borders with Abia State and Imo State to the South, Ebonyi State to the East, Benue State to the North-East, Kogi State to North-West and Anambra State to the West. The people of the state are well renowned for hospitality and interest in education. The State is made up of six education zones, which are; Enugu education zone which comprises three local government areas; Agbani education zone with three local government areas; Awgu Education zone with three local government areas; Udi educational zone with two local government areas; Nsukka education zone with three local government areas and Obollo-Afor education zone with three local government areas respectively (see Appendix A). Their major occupation is farming. The people of this area have some common characteristics which include common beliefs, values, norms, and traditional ceremonies. The study of Enugu state is justified by recent increase in crimes and violence experienced in the state. Also the skill deficit of out-of-school youths in Enugu state is considered to be a constraint to long run economic growth and a contributing factor to incidence of youth unemployment that has resulted to abject poverty in the state. Thus, need for economic empowerment of out-of-school youths through entrepreneurship education programme.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION OF RESULTS OF THE STUDY
This chapter discusses the results of the study in line with the research questions and hypotheses that guided the study
Research Question 1: What are the types of entrepreneurship education programme for economic empowerment of out-of-school youths?
CHAPTER FIVE
DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
This chapter deals with the discussion of findings, conclusion, implications of the study, recommendations, limitations of the study and suggestion for further study.
Discussion of Findings
The discussion of findings for was done under the following subheadings: types of entrepreneurship education programmes for economic empowerment of out-of-school youths, extent to which entrepreneurship education enhance production potentials of out-of-school youths, extent to which entrepreneurship education enhance skill acquisition among out-of-school youths, extent to which entrepreneurship education enhance marketing potentials of out-of-school youths, factors militating against the provisions of entrepreneurial education for economic empowerment of out-of-school youths and the strategies for enhancing entrepreneurship education programme for economic empowerment of out-of-school youths.
Types of Entrepreneurship Education Programme for Economic Empowerment of Out-of-School Youths
The findings in table 1 revealed that the outcome of technological activities can improve individuals and nations economically and otherwise, technological entrepreneurship helps to achieve commercial objectives; technological entrepreneurship helps in identifying high potentials, technological entrepreneurship intensify business opportunities for out-of-school youths; technological entrepreneurship helps in creating attractive business opportunities for great value positions for out-of-school-youths; technological entrepreneurship help to target at existing market or create an entirely new ones for out-of-school youths; technological entrepreneurship bring new technology to market in the form of new products or new processes for producing old products for economic empowerment of out-of-school youths; sociological entrepreneurship helps in recognizing social problem that affect business opportunities for economic empowerment of out-of-school youths; sociological entrepreneurship uses entrepreneurship principles to organize, create and manage business ventures to bring about social change; sociological entrepreneurship helps in creating social capital for achieving environmental goals; sociological entrepreneurship help to bring solution to society’s pressing social business problems; and Sociological entrepreneurship promote the voice of the youths.
Extent to Which Entrepreneurship Education Enhance Production Potentials of Out-Of-School Youths
From the analysis of table 2, the findings of the study revealed that entrepreneurship education equips out-of-school youths with manufacturing skills; entrepreneurship education helps out-of-school youths to be able to organize human and material resources in the best proportion to obtain the maximum output and maximum profits; entrepreneurship education enables out-of-school youths to determine what goods and services to be produced; entrepreneurship education enables the out-of-school youths to determine how to produce the goods and services needed by diverse societies; entrepreneurship education enables the out-of-school youths to determine where to produce the goods and services; entrepreneurship education enables the out-of-school youths to determine the category of people for whom to produce the goods and services; training on entrepreneurship enable the out-of-school youths determine the availability of relevant factors of production; and training on entrepreneurship enables the out-of-school youths determine the relative cost of the factors of production.
Conclusion
It has been noted that the findings of the study revealed that entrepreneurship education equip out-of-school youths with manufacturing skills; entrepreneurship education helps out-of-school youths to be able to organize human and material resources in the best proportion to obtain the maximum output and maximum profits; entrepreneurship education enables out-of-school youths to determine what goods and services to be produced; entrepreneurship education enables the out-of-school youths to determine how to produce the goods and services needed by diverse societies; entrepreneurship education enables the out-of-school youths to determine where to produce the goods and services; entrepreneurship education enables the out-of-school youths to determine the category of people for whom to produce the good and services for; training on entrepreneurship enable the out-of-school youths determine the availability of relevant factors of production; and training on entrepreneurship enables the out-of-school youths determine the relative cost of the factors of production.
Implications of the Study
These findings have a number of implications to adult education especially to community development experts. They aim at creating business opportunities and conducive environment, which empower out of school youths to raise the standard of living and provide them opportunity of developing themselves. Community development experts have carefully planned processes that eventuate into the acquisition of entrepreneurial competencies. They have entrepreneurship education in the curricular, which will help equip the youths with skills on decision making, acquisition of new ideas, methods of raising and maintaining conversations and establishing business relationships.
Moreover, the key role of adult education is to create awareness and critical thinking in the minds of the youths on the effect of illiteracy and negative attitude towards entrepreneurship education. Also, the study shows that there are many factors that hinder entrepreneurship ventures among out- of -school youths, which are infrastructural in nature, interactive, economic, technological and social, which hinder their optimal development. The implication is that the objective for which this study is set up may not be fully achieved. This is because the study will continue to hinder the advancement and improvement of entrepreneurship training
Limitations of the Study
In the course of this study, several difficulties were encountered by the researcher. For instance, some of the responses to the questions were not smooth. This is due to the fact that some of the respondents are stark illiterates. They saw the researcher as a spy. Also, some of the respondents seemed to be were biased in their responses, may be because they felt that the questionnaires would not attract any incentive. Hence, it limited the extent of validity and reliability of the findings. Another limitation was that it took the researcher time and effort to organize the youths. Also, the researcher found it a bit difficult in conducting the study because of limited fund. The researcher encountered problems going to were the communities where the respondents resided. This is because some of the communities have bad roads and the researcher was done during rainy season. The researcher had to plead with some of them to fill the questionnaire, perhaps this affected their responses. In spite of all these limitations, the researcher was convinced that the objective of the work was achieved.
Recommendations
- All the types of entrepreneurship education programmes should be inculcated into school curriculums to promote human empowerment and development through entrepreneurial skill acquisition. It is a means of reducing unemployment since it is skilled oriented and employment motivated. All school programmes should be geared toward providing entrepreneurial skills.
- The private partners and Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) should be help to ensure that the production capacities of the youths are enhanced through adequate funding of entrepreneurship education programme and other necessary contributions. This involvement should be seen by firms as a long term investment, and as an aspect of their corporate social responsibility to the nation.
- The government should help out in the establishment of skill acquisition centres all over Nigeria to aid in the smooth transfer of skill to the out-of-school youths in Nigeria.
- Conferences and workshops should be organized and sponsored by the government to inculcate in every youth the act of marketing so that these youths will be able to sale their products after productionon.
- The government should make more provisions for providing infrastructures, personnel and the funding of Entrepreneurship education programmes in Nigeria.
- Other workable strategies for effective entrepreneurship education programme among out-of- school youths should be evolved by all the stake holders involved in planning entrepreneurship education for out-of-school youths.
Suggestion for Further Studies
- From the findings, implications and limitations of this study, the researcher resolved that further research should be conducted on the following:
- Comparative study on the types of entrepreneurship education for economic empowerment of out-of-school youths in Nigeria.
- Entrepreneurship education as a strategy for enhancing production capacity of out-of-school youths for sustainable development in Nigeria
- Entrepreneurship education programme as a strategy for enhancing skill acquisition potentials of out-of-school youths in Nigeria.
- Entrepreneurship education programme as a tool for enhancing marketing capacity of out-of-school youths in Nigeria.
- Factors militating against effective entrepreneurship education programme for out-of-school youths in Nigeria.
