Speaker
Description
Emmanuel, A. O.
DEPARTMENT OF BUSINESS EDUCATION, ADEYEMI FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION, ONDO, NIGERIA
safebosun@gmail.com
Track: Sustainability and the Future
This study investigated the alignment of Entrepreneurship Business Education with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a framework for promoting sustainable skills development and enhancing graduate employability in South-West universities in Nigeria. Three research questions and three hypotheses guided the study. A descriptive survey research design was adopted with the population comprising all the final-year Business Education students and 143 Entrepreneurship and Business Education lecturers in public universities across South-West Nigeria. A sample of 512 respondents was selected using a multi-stage sampling technique. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire titled Entrepreneurship Business Education, Sustainable Skills Development and Graduate Employability Questionnaire (EBESSDGEQ). The instrument was validated by experts in Business Education and Educational Measurement from the Adeyemi Federal University of Education, Ondo; while a reliability coefficient of 0.87 was obtained using Cronbach Alpha. Data were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions, while multiple regression analysis and t-test statistics were employed to test the hypotheses at the 0.05 level of significance. The findings from the study revealed that the integration of SDG-related content into Entrepreneurship Business Education significantly influenced the development of sustainable entrepreneurial skills among students. Also, it was found that, sustainable skills development had a significant positive effect on graduate employability. The result also revealed a significant relationship between entrepreneurship curriculum alignment with SDGs and graduates' readiness for self-employment and labour market participation in South-West universities in Nigeria. The study therefore recommended that, universities should mainstream SDG principles into Entrepreneurship Business Education curricula, strengthen industry-academia partnerships for experiential learning, and provide continuous capacity-building programmes for lecturers to effectively deliver sustainability-focused entrepreneurship education which would contribute significantly to sustainable economic growth, job creation, and the achievement of national development objectives.
Keywords: Entrepreneurship Business Education, Sustainable Development Goals, Sustainable Skills Development, Graduate Employability, South-West Nigeria.