Impact of Entrepreneurship Education on Employment Creation by University Undergraduates in South-West Nigeria

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of entrepreneurship education on employment creation of undergraduate students from South-West of Nigeria. The states were Lagos State, Ogun and Oyo States respectively. The study was carried out on 3082 final year students in 9 Federal, State and Private universities comprising of University of Lagos, Lagos State University and Caleb University (Lagos State); Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Tai Solarin University of Education and Covenant University, Otta (Ogun State); University of Ibadan, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology and Ajayi Crowther University (Oyo State). The study was mixed method in nature; data were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The descriptive analysis used were frequency tables, mean, standard deviation and correlation coefficient; the inferential statistics adopted was multiple regression model to test the hypotheses. The results from the hypotheses showed that there exists a significant relationship between entrepreneurship education (CP, TM and EIA) and employment creation of university graduates in Nigeria: F(3078) = 3455.633; ρ<0.001, R²=0.771, and ∆R²=0.771. The analysis showed that CP significantly predicted the EC of university graduates in Nigeria (ß=0.442, t(3081)=25.147,ρ<0.001); TM significantly predicted EC of university graduates’ in Nigeria (ß=0.414, t(3081)=19.223,ρ<0.001); and EIA significantly predicted the EC of university graduates’ in Nigeria (ß=0.043,t(3081)=3.732,ρ<0.001). This implied that CP, TM and EIA accounted for 77.1% of the variance in Employment Creation (EC) of university graduates in Nigeria. The study revealed that EE have a significant impact on EC of university graduates in Nigeria. The study thus recommended that EE at the universities should be the core action to be taken in respect of EC, this simply implies that there should be a direct linkage between EE and EC. Also, skills appropriate for EC should be emphasized more in the curriculum.