Entrepreneurship Skills Needed by Nigerian Tertiary Institution Students and Graduates for Global Relevance

Abstract

The study examined entrepreneurship skills needed by students/graduates for global relevance. The survey research design was chosen for the study. The population of the study comprises Business Education lecturers and students from three polytechnics, four Colleges of Education and Delta State University, Abraka, all in Delta State. A sample of 110 was randomly selected comprising 53 lecturers and 57 students. Data collection was via the questionnaire which was validated by three Business Education lectures from Delta State Polytechnic Ozoro, College of Education, Agbor and Delta State University, Abraka, all in Delta State, Nigeria. In analyzing data, mean and standard deviation were used for research questions, while independent samples t-test was used to test hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed that entrepreneurship skills needed by students/graduates of tertiary institutions include trade show planning, promotion and execution. Others include skills for processing inventories, gross and net profit as well as keeping debt ledgers. The findings also specified ICT skills needed by students/graduates to include skills for accessing contra vision electronic software, deleting and merging mails, keying in data, copying, pasting and inserting in appropriate locations. Also revealed in the findings are significant difference between entrepreneurship and ICT skills essential for students and those essential for graduates. On the basis of these findings, it was recommended that some of these skills should be integrated into the tertiary education curriculum so that undergraduate students could be exposed to them as early as possible.