AN APPRAISAL OF ENTREPRENEURIAL EDUCATION AND THE CHOICE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP AMONG SELECTED NATIONAL YOUTH SERVICE CORPS (NYSC) MEMBERS POSTED TO NASSARAWA STATE.

Abstract

The continual dependence of Nigerian government on a mono- revenue source with a concomitant shrinking of the manufacturing sector, owing to poor infrastructural facilities cannot be said to be a good condition for sustainable public and private sector development. It is noticed that the country is faced with challenges of unemployment and poverty amidst abundant resources which have remained untapped..One dimension of this problem is youth unemployment, which has exacerbated the poverty incidence of the nation. In an attempt to reduce unemployment and poverty, the Nigerian government directed that entrepreneurship education be incorporated into her tertiary institutions curriculum in order to promote self employment among her graduates. This study is thus targeted at appraising and shedding more light on the role played by entrepreneurship education in stimulating entrepreneurial choice among the Nigerian youths. The study sampled 350 youth corps members at Keffi, Nassarawa state orientation camp to investigate their entrepreneurial interests. A descriptive statistical approach, using frequency distribution and percentage was adopted with a view to analyzing the data for generalization. It was revealed that the 52.6% of the graduates who indicated interest in becoming entrepreneurs after service took entrepreneurship course while in school. The remaining 47.4% prefer to work for government and organized private sector establishments, out of which, a large percentage admitted not taking entrepreneurship course while in school. Also most graduates of Polytechnics were willing to venture into entrepreneurship as much as universities graduate. Further more, graduates of education and engineering faculties were found with higher interest of-becoming self employed compared to graduates of other faculties. Finally, graduates of north/central region were found to have a lesser interest in making entrepreneurship their career choice compared to their counterparts from the south/eastem region .Our findings suggest further proactive intervention strategies by the government to consolidate entrepreneurship education in all tertiary institutions, pay more attention to infrastructural development, provide a safe and secure environment for entrepreneurship development and regulate the national minimum wage rate.