SOURCE:

Faculty: Education
Department: Vocational Education

CONTRIBUTORS:

Olaniyi, O. N.
Ezenwafor, J. I.

ABSTRACT:

This study was necessitated by the need to ensure that business education graduates acquire adequate skills for entrepreneurial success by determining small and medium enterprises managers’ ratings of skills needed by business education graduates for entrepreneurial success in Ondo and Ekiti States. Six research questions guided the study and twelve hypotheses were tested. The design of the study was descriptive survey. The population for the study was 540 out of which 230 was sampled. A 60 item structured questionnaire in a five point rating scale which was duly validated by experts in the field was used to collect data. It was structured into 5 point rating scale. The reliability coefficient of the instrument was determined using test re-test method which yielded coefficient values of .73, .76, .84, .75, .82 and .78 respectively for the six clusters. To test the internal consistency of the instrument, Cronbach Alpha was used which yielded a coefficient of 0.75 for all the clusters. Mean and standard deviation were used to analyze data in respect of research questions and to determine the cohesiveness or otherwise of respondents’ ratings. Z-test was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Findings revealed that small and medium enterprises managers rated technical skills, human relation skills, innovative skills, problem-solving skills, information and communication technology skills and marketing skills as highly needed by business education graduates for entrepreneurial success in the area. Based on these findings, it was recommended among others that the skills identified in this study needed for entrepreneurial success should be included in the course content of business education programme and be taught to all business education students irrespective of their preferred option. Also, institutional authorities should make entrepreneurial skills training development compulsory for all teachers of business education to enable them update and meet with challenging needs of skills needed for entrepreneurial success and that the regulatory agencies (NUC, NCCE, NBTE) should restructure the instructional content of business education programme in order to meet the needs of the students and the society at large.