An Examination of the Attitudes of Polytechnic Students to Entrepreneurship Education

Abstract

It is a fact that entrepreneurship has important roles to play in any nation’s socio-economic growth as it helps graduates to establish their own businesses, thereby creating jobs rather than depending on governments and private establishments for employment. This explains why entrepreneurship training was held important among students in higher institutions globally. However, gender differences have been observed in the attitudes of students towards such education. This study was conducted to investigate how students’ gender might influence their attitudes toward entrepreneurship training in order to reinforce the opinion and behaviour of potential entrepreneurs in Nigeria. Three hundred and fifteen (315) randomly selected HND II students of the Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro, Ogun State were involved in the study. The study was conducted in a classroom environment during some of their classroom sessions. A questionnaire which has 32 items (divided into three sections) was developed to gather information from the students. It was formed in Likert’s 5-point format and subjected to a pilot study. After information was collected from the students, it was subjected to statistical analysis using SPSS V21. It was realized that gender is an important factor of entrepreneurship education as a significant difference was observed in the perceived behavioural control of the male and female respondents. It was also discovered that students’ academic field does not make them feel differently about entrepreneurship lessons. It was then recommended that faculties must adopt methods and approaches that ensure gender neutrality when delivering entrepreneurship instructions. Also, policymakers in the education sector must make sure that the core objectives of entrepreneurship education are emphasized in all academic curriculums.