Assessment of the influence of entrepreneurship education on career intentions of university students: the case of the faculty of engineering at the Polytechnic.

Abstract

High unemployment rates coupled with limited economic growth have triggered policy makers into giving greater importance to entrepreneurship and self-employment to reduce unemployment, public universities in Malawi have initiated entrepreneurship education. And the faculty of engineering at the Polytechnic recently introduced entrepreneurship education to equip students with relevant knowledge in entrepreneurship and business management. However no study has been conducted to assess the impact of entrepreneurship education in the faculty. The aim of the study was to establish the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education in developing entrepreneurial intentions among university engineering students at the Malawi Polytechnic. The specific objectives were: to find out students perception towards entrepreneurship education programmes; assess the relevance of course content in entrepreneurship education in Malawi; to examine the relationship between entrepreneurship education and students career choices in Malawi; and to find out the relationship between the methods of delivery and students career choices. The research intends to answer the following questions: how much do engineering students know about entrepreneurship education, does the content taught to engineering students address most areas of entrepreneurship and business management, does entrepreneurship education influence engineering students career aspirations and which teaching methods are mostly used at the University. The research method employed was quantitative, closed questionnaires were administered to total of 193 engineering students from fifth and second year student, the latter being the control group. The findings of the study indicate that entrepreneurship education has a positive influence on the student’s career intentions of becoming entrepreneurs. Key words: entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship education, and career intentions.