ABSTRACT
The study was carried out to investigate entrepreneurship education for senior secondary schools in Enugu Education Zone. A descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population comprised 1620 male and female teachers while the sample size was 500 respondents selected using simple random sampling technique. Questionnaire and focus group interview were used as the instruments for data collection and were faced-validated by three experts. Cronbach Alpha Method was employed in computing the reliability estimate of the study that yielded 0.70 for the entire instrument. Direct delivery method was used in administering the questionnaire while the researcher conducted the focus group discussion. Five research questions and three null hypotheses guided the study. Percentage, mean and standard were used in answering the research questions while t-test was employed in testing the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings indicated that qualified entrepreneurship education teachers are inadequate in secondary education for teaching the subject. The study identified the basic entrepreneurship skills needed by secondary school students to include Okpa flour for baking cake, using Okpa flour for making akara balls, packaging Okpa flour for export, using maize flour for making bread, skills in snail farming others include banana farming, making of banana biscuits, packaging honey for export, preservation of yellow pepper and packaging of yellow pepper for export. The findings indicated that entrepreneurship education provides secondary school students with leadership competences, training for professional growth, communicative skills, organizational strategies and self employment amongst others. The findings revealed lack of qualified entrepreneurship education teachers, inadequate facilities, poor funding, and lack of electricity and poor knowledge of computer as some of the problems of entrepreneurship education in secondary schools. The findings identified training of more teachers, providing more facilities and equipment, adequate funding, provision of electricity to communities, maintenance culture, and supply of computer to students and sensitization of the students on the importance of entrepreneurship education through seminars as strategies for improving entrepreneurship education for secondary school students. The results of the three null hypotheses of the study were rejected implying that there were no significant differences between the male ratings of female on the qualification of entrepreneurship education teachers, basic entrepreneurship skills needed by secondary school students and opportunities provided by entrepreneurship education to the secondary school students in the zone. The researcher among others recommended that the Government should address the shortage of entrepreneurship education teachers through training of more teachers in the area.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Education has been described as the bedrock of every society and tool for nation buildings. Hence, the importance of education as a tool for human capital development cannot be overemphasized. Gana (2001) posited that education is not just an investment on human capital but also a pre-requisite as well as a means to life of a society, if its policies are well formulated and vigorously implemented. According to Federal Republic of Nigeria (FRN) (2014), in her National Policy on Education, education represents the totality of the institutional structures and processes that determine both learning and teaching as the means for the transmission and improvement of a society and repertoire of knowledge, ideas, skills and culture from generation to generation. Okhawere (2005) explained that nations and their people are what they are because of the nature and type of education they have been exposed to from primary to tertiary institutions, especially secondary schools.
Secondary education is an important level of education in Nigeria. Secondary education objectives, according to Federal Republic of Nigeria (FRN) (2014) include; to provide all primary school leavers with the opportunity for education of a higher level, irrespective of sex, social status, religion or ethnic background, to offer diversified curriculum to cater for the difference in talents opportunities and future roles, to provide trained manpower to the applied science, technology and commerce at sub-professional grades and to provide and promote Nigeria language, and culture, in the context of world cultural heritage amongst others.
The strategic position of secondary schools as a changeover bridge between primary and tertiary institutions, receiving primary school leavers at one end and turning out its products as potential freshmen for tertiary education makes it imperative that its product must be well-equipped to face the challenges in the society (Igbo, 2006). Igbo further stressed that this consumer and producer status of secondary education requires that it provides the right type of education such that its products are duly prepared to acquire necessary skills for employment or continued academic careers in higher education. This implies that secondary school should not only improve upon the primary school education but also remedy the deficiencies of its products while producing adequate ‘raw’ materials for higher education.
However, it appears that the secondary education curricular operational in Nigeria for the past decades is deficient and does not provide students with the required skills and knowledge for survival in the society. Igbo (2005) observed that the functionality of the secondary curriculum is in doubt, hence, the high rate of unemployment among educational output from primary to tertiary institutions. Nnadozie (2003) noted that the Nigerian school curriculum is characterized with inculcation of mono intelligence rather that multiple intelligence which is required for complete development of the students. This is a serious challenge facing educational administrators and planners in Nigeria. According to Nnadozie (2003), even where students acquire intellectual skills and succeed in their examinations, they still remain failures in life as they have not acquired other life-saving skills, such that when they are faced with problems and challenges, often they fail to cope and rather resort to unethical and immoral behaviours. Oyesuki (2008) explained that the nation’s education system has not provided enough job opportunities for its outputs. Oyesuki further explained that the current state of unemployment among the youths is because they are badly trained or semi-illiterates and that great majority of them have no technical or employable skills. This he blamed on the nations education curriculum. Earlier, Igbo (2005) had pointed out that there was a mismatch between what the nations’ economy requires and what students study in schools.
A close examination of the above suggests immediate transformation of the school system, especially the secondary schools. In search for the solution, government decided to consider entrepreneurship education as an option since the debate on entrepreneurship education and economic nexus has taken a new turn. The issue is no longer whether entrepreneurship education can make individuals entrepreneurs but that it has be proved beyond reasonable doubt that entrepreneurship education is crucial and facilitates inculcation of needed skills in students.
Given the context that entrepreneurship is expected to catalyze growth that can sustain a higher level of employment, plus the fact that entrepreneurship education can be used to inculcate entrepreneurial aptitude in individuals (Timmons, 2002), the United Nations declared the period, 2005 to 2014 as the decade for Education for Sustainable Development (Onu, 2006). According to the United Nations International Children Education Fund (UNICEF) (2008), entrepreneurship education emerged as a response to international call and the need to curb the high rate of unemployment globally and to reduce the reliance on government for paid jobs, which has manifested greatly in developing countries like Nigeria. For instance UNICEF (2008) explained that the inability to absorb Nigerian youths in the labour market accounts for 8.39% unemployment rate in the country. UNICEF further stated that most of the schools in Nigeria do not promote any entrepreneurship education and that the youths would need to either start a business, join and increase the productivity of an existing business or more generally develop a more proactive and entrepreneurial attitude in their careers.
Worried by the ugly and alarming rate of unemployment in the country, especially among the youths, the Federal Government of Nigeria proposed the introduction of entrepreneurship education in the curriculum of the nation’s school system. In reaction to this, compulsory entrepreneurship education was introduced in secondary schools, as a bulwark against the rising youth unemployment. This is because governments and policy makers, world over, have turned to entrepreneurship to mitigate the unemployment situations.
The rationale for entrepreneurship education is derived from the fact that through entrepreneurs are born with certain qualities that predispose them to entrepreneurship; those qualities can also be taught and learnt formally in the school system (Ibrahim & Ellis 2001). Additional support for this view comes from a ten-year (1985-1994) literature review of enterprise, entrepreneurship and small business management education which indicated that most of the studies indicated that entrepreneurship can be taught, or at least encouraged, through entrepreneurship education. Thus, individuals could be trained to succeed in entrepreneurship, irrespective of their gender and educational background (Chiaha and Agu, 2008). Entrepreneurship education was also found to facilitate development of core entrepreneurship traits and skills (Chiaha, Eze & Agu, 2009).
According to Onwurah and Chiaha (2009) over 80% of the secondary school products fail to gain admission into universities. This implies that this group can through entrepreneurship education find themselves and may be others, gainful employment. To avert the impending doom that could be caused by idle youths’ restiveness, entrepreneurship education, also referred to as Trade Subjects (TS), was introduced in the secondary school curriculum in 2011/2012 academic year. The introduction of entrepreneurship education into secondary schools is an important paradigm shift or a significant landmark in the nations’ secondary school education industry.
The benefits of entrepreneurship education to students include: positive outcome; increased sense of responsibility, greater awareness of personal talents and skills; improved school attendance; higher academic achievement; application of enhanced creativity skills in business situations; enhanced business opportunity recognition skills; handling of business situations ethically; problem-solving skills; understanding of steps essential in business startup; enhanced awareness of career and entrepreneurial option; use of strategies for idea generation and assessment of feasibility of ideas; understanding of basic free market economy; enhanced basic financial concepts; increased awareness of social responsibility and entrepreneur’s contribution to society; and greater likelihood of graduating to the next education level (Eno-Obong, 2006).
An entrepreneur is a person who takes risks, has initiative and creativity and makes things happen through the skills bestowed on him (Igbo, 2006). He or she applies creative and innovative talent to start his own business, project or expand one that already exists. Entrepreneurs create jobs for themselves and others through using entrepreneurial skills and competencies. Ikeme (2012) defines an entrepreneur as a person who has the ability to identify and evaluate business opportunities and initiate appropriate activities for success. In a related definition, Onu (2006) explained that an entrepreneur is a person who organizes the factors of production-land, labour and capital, into various proportions in order to produce goods and services. An entrepreneur therefore, applies creative and innovative talent and ideas to start his own business or project or develop one that already exists. An entrepreneur is defined in this study as a person who uses his technical know-how to successfully run a business enterprise for his survival in the society due to entrepreneurship education.
