ABSTRACT
The study examined the perception of business education students on the relevance of entrepreneurship education in University of Benin, Benin City. To achieve the purpose of the study, four research questions were raised and examined. Data was collected from one hundred (100) respondents selected from 300 and 400 level in Business education unit in the Department of Vocational and Technical Education, Faculty of Education, University of Benin, Benin City. The descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population for the study was made up of 196 students from 300 and 400 level Business education students in the Department of Vocational and Technical Education, Faculty of Education, University of Benin, Benin City.
The instrument used for the data collection is Likert questionnaire, which was titled “Perception of Business Education Students on the Relevance of Entrepreneurship Education Questionnaire (PBESREEQ)”. It was however subjected presented to the project supervisor and two other experts in the Department of Vocational and Technical Education to confirm for face validity. The reliability of the instrument was determined by using the test re-test method. The questionnaire was administered to a group of 20 respondents which were within the locality of the study. The results of their responses were correlated and analyzed to give a reliability coefficient of 0.84 showing that the instrument was highly reliable for the study. The data collected were analyzed using frequency count and simple percentage to compute the findings from the research.
The findings showed that there is a positive perception of students on the need for entrepreneurship education in University of Benin, Benin City. It was concluded that lack of finance, inadequate infrastructural facilities, cultural barriers, high cost of equipment and parents’ choice of white collar job all constitutes factors that deters students from taking entrepreneurship education as a career option upon graduation. Based on the findings, it was recommended that government should provide accessible and affordable loan facilities to graduates of Business education. This will afford them the opportunity to take entrepreneurship as career option.
