Effect of Entrepreneurship Education on Built Environment Students in Niger State Tertiary Institutions

Abstract

A common strategy employed to address the issue of unemployment amongst graduates is promoting entrepreneurial awareness and exposing students to the option of self-employment. Despite its popularity, the overall impact of entrepreneurship education remains a topic of ongoing debate. This study is aimed at assessing the effect of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial development and the intentions of built environment students in Niger State tertiary institutions. A quantitative research approach was thus employed with the use of a questionnaire for collecting data from students of the School of Environmental Technology at the Federal University of Technology Minna and the School of Environmental Studies at the Federal Polytechnic Bida, with a focus on seven selected Departments (Architecture, Building, Estate Management and Valuation, Surveying and Geoinformatics, Quantity Surveying, and Urban and Regional Planning). For this study, a sample size of 364 was used to obtain data for finding answers to the questions posed by the research. The analysis of the data was carried out with the use of a frequency count, percentage, mean item score and T-test. Findings from the study revealed that the most significant barriers are inadequate provision for practical work, with a mean score of 4.55 and a standard deviation less than one indicating the existence of agreement between responses. The findings revealed that family support was ranked as the first, with a mean score of 4.75 and a corresponding level of significance of 0.00, making it a statistically significant driver of entrepreneurial learning amongst built environment students. The findings reveal that the majority (40.0%) have a fair attitude towards entrepreneurship before receiving entrepreneurship education. It was revealed that the majority (48.3%) were of the view that their attitude towards entrepreneurship changed after receiving entrepreneurship education. The findings also reveal that the majority (75.0%) did not possess entrepreneurial skills before receiving entrepreneurship education, while only 25.0% of the respondents possessed entrepreneurial skills before receiving entrepreneurship education. It can therefore be concluded that there is a strong correlation between entrepreneurship education and the built environment, which influences students’ attitudes towards entrepreneurship, and that there is a moderate correlation between entrepreneurship education and the built environment's' skills for entrepreneurship. It was recommended that the engagement of students with entrepreneurial development initiatives provided by institutions involve students across all levels.