Connecting with stakeholders: an investigation into the perspectives of university-educated youths on the barriers to employment and entrepreneurship in Nigeria.

Ezeani, Elimma C.

Abstract

There is a gap with identifying what factors educated youths actually perceive as the barriers to their employment or entrepreneurship opportunities. In developing economies in particular, this question is certainly very important; connecting with this stakeholder - the youth - ensures that whatever strategies governments, educational institutions, or indeed employers adopt in addressing unemployment or in motivating entrepreneurship, there is a synergy between all stakeholders and the problems the job seeker or budding entrepreneur faces are taken into account especially in policy making. This paper reports on the results from two research activities: a general survey of Nigerian university degree holders on the issues relating to the difficulties in finding employment, and a more specific survey of MBA students, to determine what they considered to be the barriers to their employment or entrepreneurship opportunities. The key findings reveal interesting results: while a university degree was the minimum predictor for employability, formal education was not considered to be essential for employment and it was the view that Nigeria's educational system did not prepare the youths for wealth creation. Bad leadership and a perception that there was no encouragement to self-employed young people were considered to be major barriers to entrepreneurship with the private sector seen as offering the greater hope for effective action than the government or wider public sector. Yet the research also revealed from those surveyed, an unrealistic expectation for high salaries, contrasting social attitudes, arresting conclusions on viable sectors for entrepreneurship and alternatively for employment, and a question about the extent to which the youth understood the peculiarities and opportunities for entrepreneurship, in themselves and in their society.

Citation

EZEANI, E.C. 2015. Connecting with stakeholders: an investigation into the perspectives of university-educated youths on the barriers to employment and entrepreneurship in Nigeria. Posted on the Nigeria Village Square forum [online]. 30 April 2015. Available from: http://nigeriavillagesquare.com/forum/threads/on-university-employment-and-entrepreneurship-research-paper.88940/

• Digital Artefact Type: Website Content
• Acceptance Date: Apr 30, 2015
• Online Publication Date: Apr 30, 2015
• Deposit Date: Mar 16, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 16, 2016
• Keywords: University; Education; MBA; Employment; Entrepreneurship; Nigeria
• Public URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10059/1432
• Publisher URL: http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/articles/elimma-c-ezeani/a-global-recession-and-the-curious-case-of-unemployment-in-nigeria.html