Entrepreneurship Interest of Tertiary Students in Swaziland

Abstract

Entrepreneurship education was introduced in tertiary institutions to inculcate the entrepreneurial spirit and prepare learners for self-employment. Factors contributing to tertiary education students’ interest in entrepreneurship in the Swaziland context have never been determined. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to identify factors contributing to entrepreneurship interest among tertiary students. The population comprised of tertiary students who have taken (an) entrepreneurship course(s). Stratified random sampling was employed to ensure representativeness of the institutions. The design had two approaches to data collection; namely: Phase I focus group interviews and Phase II survey with questionnaire. The study was an ex post facto using descriptive, correlational, and regression analysis for data analysis. This paper presents key selected parts of the study. The findings of the study reveal that tertiary students have a high entrepreneurship interest evidenced by mean rating range in the “agree to strongly agree” category for the items relating to operating own business and being successful. In the regression model, learner expectations contribution was (7%), which was second to self-employability (37%). However, the learners are somewhat reluctant or less willing to take risks and participate under uncertain rewards. Self-employability qualities, expectations and intentions were explanatory and predictor variables for entrepreneurship interest. The study recommends that tertiary institution should mentor students in entrepreneurship and inculcate the spirit of risk taking. Students should be encouraged to mobilize resources for their start-up capital. Consideration should be given to establishing an “Entrepreneurship Fund” to loan student for start-up capital. Further, tertiary institutions should bring successful entrepreneurs to make presentations to students.