Entrepreneurial Skills Needed by Craftsmen for Establishing Small and Medium Scale Enterprises in Electrical/Electronics in Lagos State

Abstract

This study investigated the entrepreneurial skills needed by craftsmen (technical college graduates) for establishing small and medium scale enterprise in electrical/electronic in Lagos state. The study was conducted using descriptive survey research design, the target population for this study comprised of 37 electrical/electronic technology teachers and 40 entrepreneurs. The installment for data collection was 54 items questionnaire; the instrument was validated by three lecturers from the Department of Industrial and Technology Education, Federal University of Technology Minna and two entrepreneurs from Minna metropolis. The questionnaire was personally administered on the respondents by the researcher in Lagos State. The completed questionnaires were collected back on the same day to reduce information bias. The data collected was analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions while t-test statistics was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The study found out that technical skills, organization skills, communication skills, accounting skills, managerial skills and marketing skills are entrepreneurial skills needed by technical college graduates for establishing Small and Medium Scale Enterprises. The study further revealed that there was no significant difference between the mean responses of the technical college teachers and the entrepreneurs on the entrepreneurial skills needed. Consequently, It was recommended among others that the entrepreneurial skills identified from the findings of this study should be packaged and infused into technical college curriculum to enable students acquire these skills before graduation.