MAKING TERTIARY EDUCATION COURSES OF STUDY ENTREPRENEURIAL FOR SELF-RELIANCE, EFFECTIVE AND JOB-CREATION ORIENTED EDUCATION OF NIGERIAN GRADUATES

Researches tend to show that entrepreneurs are made and not born. Given the right exposure, correct environment, necessary incentives, opportunities, education and orientation, entrepreneurs will evolve the need to achieve, excel, and be independent and to be seen as successful. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the need to make all courses of study in Nigeria tertiary institution to be entrepreneurially inclined as a way of salvaging the joblessness prevalent among graduates. Survey research design was adopted. The population comprised about 2700 fresh University and Polytechnic graduates posted to Lagos State in 2012 for their National Youth Service while the sample consisted of 280 of them selected with stratified random sampling technique. A 31-item questionnaire validated by two experts and with reliability coefficient of 0.8333 was used for data collection. The data collected was analyzed with f %, mean, SD, and t-test statistics. The results show that more than 86% of the respondents wanted all courses of study to be entrepreneurial, 68% wanted an extension of the duration for each courses of study to acquire additional Postgraduate Diploma in a chosen field of entrepreneurial education. It also shows that there is no significant difference in the opinion of graduates from different institutions. It was partly recommended that incorporation of entrepreneurial education into all courses of study should be given a trial as an innovation towards solving the problem of joblessness among youths.