Twenty-First Century Skills and Competencies Required by Business Education Graduates for Effective Entrepreneurial Success in Ebonyi State
Abstract
The study focused on the 21st century skills and competencies required by business education graduate for effective entrepreneurial success in Ebonyi State. Two objectives research questions and their corresponding two hypotheses were formulated by the researcher to guide the study. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study was 783 employers of labours in Cross River State. The sample size of the study was 235 employers of labour in Cross River State using simple random sampling technique. The instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire. The instrument was validated by two experts in Business Education. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive mean statistics and standard deviation. The hypotheses were tested using ANOVA and t-test at 0.05 level of significance. The results showed that personality and communication skills are the 21st century skills and competencies required by business education graduate for effective entrepreneurial success in Ebonyi State. The implications of these results are that every graduate should develop skills that will enable them to utilize personality and communication skills for effective entrepreneurial success. The study concluded that since employers of labour require a well-skilled worker for employment, business educators required to equipped students with veritable skills for effective entrepreneurial success after graduation. It was therefore recommended, among others, that curriculum planners should integrate more ICT practical skills into business education curriculum so that graduates of business education will possess the relevant skills for adequate and satisfactory entrepreneurial success in the industry and Business Education students should be well trained in communication skills because effective communication improves productivity, teamwork, create good relationship among people working in an organization.
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Authors
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