Developing entrepreneurship education : empirical findings from Malaysian polytechnics

Abstract

This study identifies empirically the effectiveness of the entrepreneurship curriculum used in Malaysian polytechnics. This includes an evaluation of the syllabus, teaching methods and lecturer training programmes. The study investigates the relationship between entrepreneurship education and polytechnic students‟ entrepreneurial tendencies. The needs of this research arise due to problems of unemployment amongstgraduates and the inadequacy of research on entrepreneurship education. It also responds to the government's intention to achieve “Developed Nation” status in 2020.The research, one of the most comprehensive ever undertaken in this area, comprises interviews and focus groups with students, lecturers, senior managers in polytechnics and officials from the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education. In addition, the General Enterprising Tendency (version 2) Test (GETv2) was used with students to explore their entrepreneurial tendencies. Six hundred Malay-version questionnaires were randomlydistributed to selected classes during a regular lecture period in 2008. After screening, a total of 506 questionnaires were deemed completed and usable: a response rate of 84.3 percent. The study identifies that the entrepreneurship syllabus in polytechnics is not effective and students are not imbued with entrepreneurial knowledge, skills and attributes during their study. Teaching approaches appear to be inappropriate and polytechnic lecturers do not appear to have relevant entrepreneurial skills, knowledge or training. There are shortcomings in the way entrepreneurship education is organized and funded in highereducation and cooperation and networking within the agencies, whether domestic or international, is low. The role of culture perceived to be of particular importance. Cultural factors such as gender, values, religion, family back ground and ethnicity are crucial issues which influence students‟ tendency towards entrepreneurship. These findings provide the basis for a new model of entrepreneurship development for higher education in Malaysia.The contribution of the study is therefore to add to the body of knowledge on entrepreneurship education by providing empirical evidence from a Malaysian perspective.

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