Determinants of Entrepreneurial Skill Acquisition among Agricultural Students in Nigeria Universities in Ogun State

Abstract

Entrepreneurial skill acquisition among agricultural students in Nigeria Universities has been of major concern due to explosion rate of unemployment in the country. In the study that investigated the determinants of the entrepreneurial skills acquisition among agricultural students in universities located in Ogun State, 40 students were purposefully selected University of Agriculture, Tai Solarin University of Education and Olabisi Onabanjo University making a total of 120 students as the study sample. The findings revealed that majority of the students were in the age grade of 21 – 24 years (63.1%), male (71.7%), Christian (52.5%) and from Department of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Extension and Rural Sociology, Home and Hotel Management Department, Department of Animal Production, Department of Crop production Department of Soil Science and Farm Mechanization and Department of Renewable Resources. Majority of the respondents posited that they had acquired fish, pig, crop, poultry rabbit, cattle, snail and grass-cutter productions. Also, the students posited that they have leadership skill, self confidence, ability to organize resources to achieve goals, innovate and speculate, have need for achievement and success in skill acquired and lastly possess strong desire for responsibility and independence respectively. Also 70.8% of the respondents agreed that the level of the skill acquired determined their efficiency as entrepreneur. The study  therefore recommended that economic policy and programs that are geared towards self reliance for individuals such as Open Apprenticeship Scheme, Graduate Employment Programs etc and other policies that encourage or make it easy for entrepreneurs to acquire the needed funds e.g.; Peoples Bank of Nigeria, Funds for Small-Scale Industries (FUSSI), co-operative societies etc must be established throughout the nation and also empowered by the Government to assist entrepreneurs in Nigeria especially graduates from Universities.

Keywords: Entrepreneur, Skill acquisition, Agriculture, Students, Universities