Enhancing young graduates’ intention towards entrepreneurship development in Malaysia

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of the Basic Student Entrepreneurial Programme (BSEP) among local university graduates who have undergone the training programme in entrepreneurship development. Design/methodology/approach -In total, 410 respondents who had participated in BSEP were interviewed with a structural questionnaire to gather information on their social attitude towards the effectiveness of BSEP on their intention to become an agri-entrepreneur. Chi-square analysis was used to determine the relationship between demographic variables towards motivating agrientrepreneurship among the participants. Findings -The results show that the participants agreed upon the effectiveness of BSEP in developing graduates' intention towards becoming agri-entrepreneurs. The results also show that there is a significant relationship between three variables which motivate participants to become agri-entrepreneurs. These were the origin of the participant, the presence of family members already involved in entrepreneurial activities and educational background.Research limitations/implications -The paper is only concerned with students' perceptions towards the effectiveness of BSEP in encouraging them to become agri-entrepreneurs. The results from this paper are limited in terms of determining whether they really become an agri-entrepreneur or not because this research only focuses on intention. Practical implications -The paper provides an important exploratory analysis of the BSEP programme to enable further research to take place in the area of entrepreneurship education. The findings provide a valuable insight on effective teaching methodologies in the area of entrepreneurship education. Originality/value -The paper expands on Ajzen's framework to provide a basis to improve the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education in Malaysia.

Policies and Practices for Entrepreneurial Education in Malaysia: A Review

“…This activity begins in primary schools; such as when entrepreneurial elements are introduced in Mathematics. Meanwhile in secondary schools, the stress on the importance of entrepreneurship education can be seen when the students are compulsory to study Integrated Living Skills that was initiated in the year 1991, which includes components of commerce and entrepreneurship (Mohamed et al, 2012). The constant effort is also shown when students can choose Commerce and Entrepreneurship Education as elective subjects in vocational and technology streams in the upper secondary school (Mohamed et al, 2012;Othman et al, 2012b).…”

“…As mentioned by many scholars, entrepreneurship is viewed as an engine that drives the economy (Ali et al, 2010;Gorman, Hanlon, & King, 1997;Mohamed et al, 2012). Moreover, according to Temtime, Chinyoka, and Shunda (2004), there is a universal agreement among public policy makers, academics, and researchers that entrepreneurship is a crucial key to economic advancement for many countries.…”

“…Thus, each country is determined to find numerous ways to improve their economy and one of the widely known options is through entrepreneurship. Indeed, many governments around the world believe that the key to economic development is entrepreneurship (Hebert & Link, 2011) including Malaysia (Mohamed et al, 2012).…”

In Search of Alignment: A Review of Impact Studies in Entrepreneurship Education

“…Second, our analysis also reveals that the interventions vary greatly in duration and at times do not match what one would consider a program or course. For instance, a bundle of studies did not report on the time period for the intervention [25,29,30]. Yet, others define a course that may last between three days or twenty-four hours of class in total [1] to one semester [31].…”

“…The objectives span from being unspecified [35,38] through the rather generic to the more specific. Objectives like the "programme is targeted to final year students in higher education institutes who are interested in undertaking business opportunities in the future before they graduated" ( [30], p. 607), "the programme aims to prepare students for an entrepreneurial career, specifically to prepare them for establishing their own businesses" ( [34], p. 192), or cultivate professionals [36] Education Research International 5 offer a good illustration of the generic motive throughout some studies. We argue that there is no clear delineation of implicitly formulated objectives in these generic motives.…”