Evaluation of the Implementation of Undergraduate General Studies Entrepreneurship Curriculum in Federal Universities in North-Central Geo-Political Zone, Nigeria

Abstract

The study evaluated the Implementation of Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Curriculum in Federal Universities in North Central Geo - Political Zone, Nigeria. The study was aimed at finding out the level of the implementation of the GST entrepreneurship education in federal universities in Nigeria and how it has equipped the undergraduate students with the necessary entrepreneurship skills that would enable them to practice after graduation. Four research questions and two hypotheses were raised for the study. A cross-sectional survey research design was used for the study. The population of the study constituted of seven federal universities in the study area 14 directors, 49 GST lecturers and 25,087 final year (400 levels) undergraduate students. The sample size of the study consisted of five federal universities, 10 Directors (including five GST Directors & five Entrepreneurship Directors), 29 GST lecturers and 1826 final year (400 levels) undergraduate students using multi-stage sa m pling technique. The instruments for data collection were structured Undergraduate General Studies Entrepreneurship Curriculum Implementation Questionnaires (UGSECIQ) which were sub-divided into three sections for : directors, lecturers and students. Content validity was established on the questionnaire by three experts, each from Curriculum Studies, Business Management and Measurement and Evaluation from the University of Jos. A reliability coefficient of 0.890, 0.901 and 0.957 for the directors, lecturers and students’ responses respectively were obtained through Cronbach Alpha. The data obtained for the research questions were analysed using mean, standard deviation and simple percentage while chi-square for independent samples and ANOVA were used for testing the hypotheses using SPSS version 21.0. The results of the findings revealed that the implementation process of the undergraduate GST entrepreneurship education was constrained by inadequate funding to procure learning materials and facilities for equipping the entrepreneurship centres of the universities. It was recommended based on the finding that the universities management through the National Universities Commission (NUC) collaborate s with Industrial Training Fund (ITF), Petroleum Trust Funds (PTF) and Tertiary Educational Trust Fund (TET-Funds) to access funds to sponsor entrepreneurship education programme of the universities. Also, universities management should collaborate with successful private entrepreneurs within its vicinity and outside for sponsorship of entrepreneurship activities in the universities by so doing will reduce underfunding of the programme in the universities.