Entrepreneurship Education Programme : An Evaluation of Student Performance in Polytechnics

Entrepreneurship education was introduced to tertiary institutions in Nigeria to give students skill acquisition. The purpose is to equip them for establishing and managing small-scale enterprises before graduation and be able to sustain such enterprises thereafter. The enterprises serve as means of being gainfully employed if paid employments are not forthcoming after graduation. This tends to curb the rising level of unemployment among youths and the attendant social vices. The aim of this study is to evaluate the performance of students in entrepreneurship education after exposure to all the courses taken during their academic training. A survey research design was used for the study. Three research questions and three research hypotheses were raised to guide the study. Through stratified sampling procedure, HND 2 students of Yaba College of Technology from the School of Science and School of Management and Business Studies were selected for the study. Students from the Department of Computer Technology and the Department of Biochemistry were selected from the School of Science while students from the Department of Accountancy and Department of Office Technology Management were selected from the School of Management and Business Studies to participate in the study. Data used for the study were the grades obtained by those students from the final entrepreneurship education course taken by them and were analysed using frequency count, percentage, and t-test. All hypotheses were tested at a 0.05 significant level. Results from the study revealed that there were significant differences in student performances in entrepreneurship education across the Schools and Departments. It is recommended that more efforts should be geared towards qualitative delivery of the programme and incubation centers should be established in all Polytechnics to enable students to benefit immensely from the programme