Undergraduate Entrepreneurship in Ekiti State University: A Survival Response or a Career Rehearsal?

Abstract

Entrepreneurship education has been recognised as one of the vital determinants that could influence students’ career decisions. Understanding undergraduate entrepreneurship on campus and how business affect academic career of students is a recent development in most universities in Nigeria. Studies that investigate the effects of student entrepreneurship on campus in universities in Nigeria are relatively scarce in the literature. The objective of this research was to determine the demographic characteristics of undergraduate entrepreneurs in Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti. The research among other things is put together to determine reasons for undergraduate involvement in businesses on campus. The study also determined the extent at which combining academic work with business activities affects student performances in the university. Descriptive statistics including regression analyses and percentage of the quantitative data at the 0.05 level of significance were used to address the research objectives using SPSS (version 23).The results indicated the demographic characteristics of undergraduate such as age, gender, family background, nature of parent occupation and status at work, all have significance influence on undergraduate entrepreneurship on campus. Similarly, the R (correlation Coefficient) gives a positive value of 0.711; this indicates that there is a very strong and positive relationship between business activities (low income, government policy) and students’ academic performance. Recommendations include that university should recognise undergraduate entrepreneurship on campus and develop a framework that accommodates student involvement in business activities on campus vis-à-vis their academic performance.