Emerging Entrepreneurial Skills Required by Business Education Students for Managing Small Scale Enterprises in Rivers State

Abstract

The study investigated Emerging Entrepreneurial Skills Required of Business Education Graduating Students for Managing Small Scale Enterprises in Rivers State. Four objectives, four research questions and four hypotheses guided the study. Descriptive Survey Design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprises 177 post graduate Business Education students made up of 68 RSU students and 109 students IAUE in Rivers State. Purposive sampling technique was adopted and the total population was used since it was a manageable sample size. A 20 item structured questionnaire titled Emerging Entrepreneurial Skills Required by Business Education Graduating Student (EESRBEGS) questionnaire was used for data collections. The instrument was a four point rating scale questionnaire of VHE, HE, ME and LE validated by two Business Educators and one expert in Measurement and Evaluation faculty of Education Rivers State University Port-Harcourt in Faculty of Education, Rivers State University. Cronbach Alpha was used to establish a reliability coefficient of 0.87.The instrument was administered to the respondents by the researchers with the help of two assistants. Data collected were analyzed using Mean and Standard Deviation to answer the research questions, while t–test statistics was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significant.  Findings revealed that Business Education students required product packaging skill, research and development skill, Innovation skill and Social media communication skills to high extent for managing small scale enterprises in Rivers State.  The study further revealed that, emerging entrepreneurial skills makes students relevant for industrial demands and enhance graduates with proficiency in product planning, quality design, Branding and packaging amongst others. Based on the findings, the study recommends that University administrators should collaborate with industries to inculcate product packaging skills to students, Business Educator should ensure that students in level three and four hundred are taught practical business promotion strategy and researching techniques to develop critical thinking and problem-solving abilities for managing small scale enterprises in Rivers State.