The teaching of entrepreneurship and small business management curriculum at the university level: a study of selected public and private universities in Kenya.

Abstract

The study was aimed at investigating the curriculum of entrepreneurship and small business management course at the university level, teaching methods used, objectives, reference materials used, organization of the course, and the students attitude towards entrepreneurship courses they have taken.

The research focused on selected public and private universities. A sample of 120 students was used which was obtained using simple random sampling. The technique used involved two questionnaires, one for the studies and another one for the coordinators of entrepreneurship courses were used in order to achieve the objectives of the study. Data analysis was done using the statistical package for social sciences (spss).

The researcher found out that the selected universities offer one or more entrepreneurship courses to their students. The courses are offered to both business and non-business students and are offered at different levels in different universities. Some of the topics covered in the course content are common across the board while some are only offered to specific groups of students. The objectives of entrepreneurship and small business management courses are mainly to enhance entrepreneurial skills to the students and assist them to be self-employed in future. However it seems like the objectives have not been achieved because students feel that the courses offered to them are inadequate and they do not have intentions of utilizing the knowledge acquired from entrepreneurship and small business management courses by starting their own businesses. The most common approach used to teach the course is the traditional lecture method, however, group discussions are also used. In general the students feel that the approaches used are unsuitable and that the trainers should abopt better methods such as inviting successful entrepreneurs to give talks and giving the students field experience and industrial attachments. It was found out that most students take the course because it is compulsory and this calls for a need to change the students' attitude towards entrepreneurship.

Further research should be carried out on the other institutions offering entrepreneurship courses such as private colleges, youth polytechnics and the universities not covered by the researcher.