The Impact Of Entrepreneurship Skill Acquisition On Fresh Graduate Self-Employability Status: (A Study Of Olabisi Onabanjo University Fresh Graduate Students)

ABSTRACT
This study examines the impact of entrepreneurial skills acquisition on the employability status of Nigerian graduates. Entrepreneurship education plays a major role in the reduction of unemployment in Nigeria. However, while most Nigerian universities have initiated entrepreneurship courses in their curricular; little research is available to assess its impact and to know whether there is a between students’ entrepreneurial skills acquisition and their employability status. This paper provides understanding of the entrepreneurial intentions of small sampled Nigerian graduates. It reports finding from quantitative data retrieved from questionnaire administered to 353 graduates of the Faculty of Social and Management Sciences that were selected through stratified and simple random sampling. Analytical techniques used include frequency count, percentages, and inferential statistics in the form of chi-square and degree of significance to know the impact of entrepreneurship skill acquisition on students’ self-employability status. The study found that exposure to entrepreneurship education influences students’ intentions of becoming self-employed and improve their employability status. It was however discovered that most students were not very confident about their intentions due to fear of capital, failure, and lack of experience in business management. The study concludes that despite knowledge of entrepreneurship education as a contributing factor in the reduction of unemployment, Nigerian youth requires additional supports to overcome the foreseen challenges.