Effects of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial intention of the final year students of the Federal University Dutsin-Ma, Nigeria

Abstract

This study examines the effect of entrepreneurship education on the entrepreneurial intention of 375 final year students of Federal University Dutsin-Ma (FUDMA), Nigeria. The study adopts a cross-sectional survey research design, and the structured questionnaire as a method of data collection. The study utilized both descriptive statistics such as frequencies and percentages, and the multiple regression techniques. The main findings indicate that attitude towards behaviour has no statistically significant effect on entrepreneurial intention; subjective social norm has a positive and significant effect on entrepreneurial intention, and perceived behaviour control has a significant and positive effect on entrepreneurial intention of the final students of the FUDMA. The study concludes that entrepreneurial intention of the FUDMA students is strongly influenced by the combination of the graduate’s personal inclination (i.e., interest, knowledge, ability, and self-confidence) and motivation from the family, relatives, friends, and known successful entrepreneurs. It is recommended that the Nigerian Universities Commission (NUC) should continue to ensure and enforced vigorously the compulsory teaching of entrepreneurship, which focused shall be on practical skills acquisition aimed at training students to be self-reliant. It is also recommended that university graduates should be encouraged by all and sundry in the society to be self-reliant and become employers of labour, rather than, the over-reliance on jobs from the public and private sectors, which are hardly available.