CHAPTER ONE
1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY
INTRODUCTION
Nigeria recently encounters a number of problems which can only be curb if it has innovative, well educated, and entrepreneurial citizens who, whatever their walks of life, have the spirit and inquisitiveness to meditate in new ways, and the motivation to encounter and adapt to the problems facing them. Moreover, a changing economy, which is innovative and able to nurture youths who will launch and independently develop their own commercial or social ventures, or who will become innovators in the wider establishments in which they work, is surely what Nigeria really needs at this point in time to scale through her challenges. Entrepreneurship teaching is important not only to shape the mindsets of youths but also to provide the necessary skills and knowledge that are vital to developing an entrepreneurship culture. Entrepreneurship teaching helps to equip students with the required knowledge, skills and motivation to motivate entrepreneurial success in a variety of endeavors (Wikipedia, 2013).
It is made of all kinds of experiences that provide students the capability and vision of how to initiate and transform opportunities of different kinds (UNESCO, 2008). It is beyond business creation. It is about improving students’ ability to anticipate and respond to societal innovations. It is also seen by UNESCO as teaching and training which enables students to develop and use their creativity and to take initiative, responsibilities and risks. The views above shows that entrepreneurship teaching by its scope, nature and features is a rebranding education culture meant to assure a comprehensive educational system re-engineering arising from the obvious deficiencies of the existing education system (Enu, 2012). It is aimed at equipping the students with academic knowledge, requisite skills of creativity, innovative and risk taking, ability to turn ideas into action and capacities needed in the world of work, as well as the ability to plan and manage projects in order to achieve objectives. It develops in the learners the mindsets, generic attributes and skills that are the foundations of entrepreneurship.
Developing entrepreneurship characteristics and skills in schools at the early age increases awareness of career opportunities, as well as of ways youths can contribute to the development and prosperity of their communities (Karen, 2009). An education of such magnitude helps youths maximize their full human potential and maintain their place in society as productive, responsible and democratic citizens. One of the main concerns of governments is how to calm the ever rising tide of unemployment and achieve appreciable success in wealth creation and poverty eradication in line with the objectives of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Vision 20:2020( Ogueri, 2013). Stakeholders in education have exhibited with fear the unfortunate trend on which our higher institutions yearly turn out graduates who roam the streets daily in search of jobs that are non-existing and have placed this ugly phenomenon on the door step of a dysfunctional education system that has structurally failed to capture the dynamic nature of education as agent of transformation and a catalyst for individual and societal self-reliance (Ogueri, 2013)