Entrepreneurship Education (EE): “Sufficient or a Necessary Condition” for Incubating Business in Nigeria

Over the years, entrepreneurship development has become a burning issue which countries all over the world aspire to achieve. Most countries particularly the developing countries such as Nigeria have not reduced unemployment even with the decade old entrepreneurship education in its schools’ curricula. Most of these countries think that entrepreneurship education is a “necessary condition” for boosting entrepreneurship development. Thus, neglecting the roles governments have to play for achieving high entrepreneurship propensity. Governments of the less developed countries do not provide the basic infrastructural facilities such as constant power supply, potable pipe borne water, good roads network, accessibility to credit facilities and etc (OCED, 2004). This study attempts to find out whether entrepreneurs consider EE a necessary condition or sufficient condition for incubating business. Through the use of simple random sampling technique, some 120 entrepreneurs in Yobe State were studied by means of structured questionnaire. Respondents were grouped into two. These groups are 60 entrepreneurs with EE knowledge and another 60 without EE knowledge. Only 110 questionnaires were retrieved. Simple percentage was used in making the analysis of responses. Hypotheses were tested at 5% confidence interval using the t-test. The means of the two groups were compared. The findings indicate no significant difference between the means of the two groups for Ho1 and a significant difference between the means of the two groups for Ho2. Recommendations were offered in order to ensure effective entrepreneurship development in Nigeria. Key words: Entrepreneurship education, economic development, infrastructural facilities, sufficient condition, necessary conditio