Entrepreneurial Opportunities and Challenges for Microbiology Graduates in Nigeria

Abstract

Unemployment among university graduates is a problem that has steadily worsened over the last two decades in Nigeria. The root of this socio-economic problem is the fact that university graduates in Nigeria all want to be employees in the public and private sectors, and there are just not enough jobs to accommodate them all. Previous studies on graduate entrepreneurship in Nigeria have been descriptive in nature seeking to understand the relationship between entrepreneurship education, self-employment intentions and actions and obstacles hindering graduate entrepreneurship. This paper provides a different perspective by providing a prescriptive and normative step-by-step approach which Microbiology graduates can utilize to actualize their entrepreneurship dreams after graduation. This involved identifying entrepreneurial opportunities in the field of Microbiology such as academia, food, agriculture, laboratory services, water quality services, the pharmaceutical industry and public health. The paper also identified the main obstacles hindering microbiology graduates from achieving self-employment such as limited access to funding, lack of business management skills, limited access to technology, limited access to markets and difficulties navigating different regulatory hurdles. Practical steps which microbiology graduates can adopt to overcome these challenges were presented, and the paper concludes by suggesting policy recommendations in the form of targeted policies and programs that promote entrepreneurship and support self-employment ventures which create a more enabling environment for graduates to establish and grow their businesses, thereby creating employment opportunities for others.