Entrepreneurship Education as Helicopter for Entrepreneurship Development : Nigerian Perspective

Although the typical Nigerian entrepreneurship has always been conceived at the family level success would depend on possession of basic qualities in addition to the skills and knowledge about the technical and functional aspects of owning and managing an enterprise. Entrepreneurship growth and development beyond the family, micro, small and medium levels require knowledge and professional abilities associated with entrepreneurship education. The study was designed to evaluate the relationship between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurship development and make recommendations. Entrepreneurship education involves the process of exposing individuals with the mindset of enterprise and innovativeness in order to generate and realize new opportunities in the economy. Higher education in entrepreneurship goes far beyond the mere delivery of knowledge to participating in business ecosystems, and promotion of entrepreneurialism. It leads the individual entrepreneur to explore the reasons for the success or failure of individual enterprises. Understanding the roots of success and failure is not an empty academic exercise. Such understanding brings a better appreciation of the strategies that can increase the probability of success and reduce the probability of failure. Many of these strategies apply to all enterprises micro, small, medium and large. Entrepreneurs have traditionally demonstrated a helicopter mentality by navigating through the remotest corners of their environments in search of opportunities for development. The survey research design was used and data analyzes were done through tables and Pearson's correlation analysis. With r = .99 it was found that entrepreneurship education has a very strong positive relationship with entrepreneurship development. Eight recommendations were made based on the result of the study