The curriculum offerings in higher education are part of the avenues to achieve the self-reliance education policy in Nigeria. But the available literature has not adequately addressed the extent to which the curriculum offerings across the subject disciplines in colleges of education prepare youths for self-employment. This study therefore examined the curriculum offerings and self-reliance education in a southwestern college of education in Nigeria. The study is a descriptive survey in which 262 final year college of education students were purposively sampled. Curriculum Offerings for Self-reliance Education Rating Scale (COSERS) was the instrument used for data collection. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics of t-test and analysis of variance were used for data analysis. The study found out that poor curriculum implementation over the years is one of the reasons why students fall short of self-reliance skills. Also, there is a significant difference in the competency needs for self-reliance possessed by students from the five schools in the college of education (F 5 :261 = 2.907; P(0.022)<.05. It is recommended that curriculum modification and pragmatic teaching methodologies along with adequate provision of resources would enable appreciable self-employment skills to be developed in the students passing through colleges of education in Nigeria.

Any form of education that does not equip its beneficiaries with skills to be self-reliant is a faulty system of education. Business education must be ready to offer recipients functional education that will enhance performance as well as assist them to contribute meaningfully to the economic development of the country. This calls for education that will equip the students upon graduation to be fitted in the dynamic society. This includes the acquisition of skills in areas that will be useful to business students and make them self-reliant, independent and productive citizens of the society. Today the developments of Nigerian educational system and students’ academic achievements have placed many demands on the effectiveness of business teachers. One of the demands is that schools should graduate students with employable skills. From an entrepreneurial perspective, the main aim of any business education is to improve the capability of the students to identify good business opportunities, evaluate these opportunities in terms of feasibility, and visualize a business model that can be commercialized. This paper examined the concepts of business education, business teacher education, self-reliance and dwelled extensively on modalities that could enhance business teacher education towards self-reliance. It is recommended among others that the curriculum developers should integrate those key areas that will help the students and ‘would be’ teachers to acquire necessary skills needed for sustenance of one’s life and the society at large.