The Effect of Entrepreneurship Education on Business Students’ Intention of Developing their Enterprise: A Case Study of Makerere University

Abstract

This study investigates the Effects of Entrepreneurship Education on Business Students’ Intention towards developing their enterprises, case study of Makerere University, Kampala specifically business students at the CoBAMS. The objectives of the study were to establish the relationship between teaching methodology and the Entrepreneurial intention of students, to investigate the relationship between business program of study and entrepreneurial intention of venture creation, to find out whether there is a relationship between the gender of the students and entrepreneurial intention, and to find out whether there is a relationship between obstacles to starting up a business and entrepreneurial intention.

The study employed 107 respondents who were selected from three courses at CoBAMS which included BCOM, BBA, and BDEC. Data was collected using questionnaires and data analysis was done using SPSS and STATA. The hypotheses of this research were tested with a Pearson correlation test and a binary response regression model, to test for the significant effects of entrepreneurship education on business students’ intention and desire for venture creation in Uganda.

The key findings revealed that the Obstacles to Venture Creation have a significantly positive relationship on the Students Intention to own their Enterprise, while Gender, Program of study and teaching methodology were found to have a negative relationship on Students’ intention to own their enterprise.

Although entrepreneurship education has been introduced and promoted in many countries and at many institutions of tertiary education, little is known at this point about the effect of these courses. In particular, it is largely unknown how the courses impact students’ willingness to engage in entrepreneurial activity and what kind of learning processes are responsible for these effects. The entrepreneurial potential of university students and obstacles to venture creation are quite important for achieving an entrepreneurial society.

The findings of this research support the positive correlation between entrepreneurship Intention and obstacles to intention. Thus policymakers need to concentrate on informing young people about innovation-driven types of entrepreneurship. To achieve this, policymakers need to understand that government initiatives will affect business formations only if these initiatives affect attitudes, entrepreneurial abilities, and subjective norms. Different designs of entrepreneurship education for example practical works, innovations and the education structure should also further be investigated and improved for efficiency, since entrepreneurship makes a critical contribution to the national income and the development of the country.