ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION, COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP AND UNIVERSITY GOAL ACHIEVEMENT IN NORTH-CENTRAL NIGERIA
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2021-06
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
UNIVERSITY OF ILORIN
Abstract
Entrepreneurship education and community partnership have become trending issues which raised deep concern among educational stakeholders. Hence, transformational management strategies that could enhance effective entrepreneurship education and community partnership become imperative for actualization of university goal. The study examined entrepreneurship education, community partnership and university goal achievement in North-central Nigeria. The objectives of the study were to: (i) examine the level of entrepreneurship education in North-central, Nigeria; (ii) investigate the level of community partnership in North-central, Nigeria; (iii) determine the level of university goal achievement in North-central, Nigeria; (iv) examine the relationship between entrepreneurial attitude and university goal achievement in North-Central Nigeria; and (v) determine the relationship between community resource alliance and university goal achievement in North-Central Nigeria.
Descriptive research design of correlation type was adopted in carrying out the study. The study population comprised 58,610 students and 74 policy makers and community stakeholders from six states and Federal Capital Territory in North-central Nigeria. Purposive sampling technique was used to select eight out of the 23 Universities, while stratified sampling technique was employed to select 1,424 students and 58 policy makers and the community stakeholders respectively in North-central Nigeria. Three sets of research questionnaires were used: “University Entrepreneurship Education Questionnaire (UEEQ), University Community Partnership Questionnaire (UCPQ) and University Goal Achievement Questionnaire (UGAQ)”. Also, semi-structured interview and observation were used with the aid of coding, thematic processing of observation notes and video-recording to present inductive and deductive reasoning of the qualitative research findings. The instruments were validated with reliability coefficients of 0.71, 0.82 and 0.68 for UEEQ, UCPQ and UGAQ respectively. The semi-structured interview and observation methods were analysed using mean score, whereas the hypotheses were analysed using Pearson‟s correlation statistics at 0.05 level of significance. The benchmark for determining the level of entrepreneurship education, community partnership and university goal achievement were high with mean scores of 2.83-3.11, 3.24-3.32 and 3.21-3.32 respectively.
The findings of the study were that:
i. the level of entrepreneurships education was high with a mean score of 3.11;
ii. the level of community partnership was high with a mean score of 3.32;
iii. the level of university goal achievement was high, with a mean score of 3.21;
iv. there was a positive significant relationship between entrepreneurial attitude and university goal
achievement (r=0.32, p<0.05); and
v. there was a positive significant relationship between community resource alliance and university goal achievement (r=0.056, p<0.05)
The study concluded that entrepreneurship education and community partnership were desirable for accomplishing university goal. The implication of the study is that functional entrepreneurship training management and genuine community collaboration would address the challenges that are associated with graduate unemployment. The study recommended that entrepreneurship education training programme (EETP) be reviewed periodically in line with best global practices.
Description
Keywords
ENTREPRENEURSHIP, ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION, COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP, UNIVERSITY GOAL ACHIEVEMENT, NORTH-CENTRAL NIGERIA