Empowering Ghanaian Polytechnic Students through Entrepreneurship and Competency Based Education: A Case Study of Takoradi Polytechnic

Abstract

The youth cannot be ignored in view of the vital roles they play in the socio- economic development of nations around the globe. Entrepreneurship education has been identified as one of the most innovative ways of arresting graduate unemployment around the globe. Youth unemployment has been on the increase in recent times partly due to traditional courses the youth pursue in most tertiary institutions in Ghana which have less linkage to the world of work. Youth unemployment policy features   prominently on the national agenda of most developing countries, including Ghana. Consequently, many graduates rely on the government to provide them jobs after school.It is against this backdrop that entrepreneurship education has been introduced in most tertiary institutions in Ghana to equip students with the much needed innovations and entrepreneurial skills to set up businesses as a way of relieving the government from the provision of jobs to the throng of unemployed graduates. This paper evaluates the entrepreneurship education in the Polytechnics in Ghana and how it is structured to meet the aspiration of the students. The paper also investigates students’ attitude towards the study of entrepreneurship. It also highlights students’ capacities to establish their own businesses after graduation and how they could raise funds and promote stronger relationships with the business community. It is hoped that this would go a long way to unearthing challenges students encounter in the study of entrepreneurship as a course.

Keywords: entrepreneurship education; economic empowerment; competencies.