ANALYSIS OF THE IMPACT OF COURSE OF STUDY ON STUDENTS ATTITUDES TOWARDS ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
The rate of unemployment among school graduates is quite alarming in Nigeria. As part of measures to ameliorate the growing ugly situation, government at all levels (federal, state and local) are putting in place measures to encourage self-reliance, creativity and innovation drive through entrepreneurship development in Nigeria.
To understand entrepreneurship and development is to discover why Nigeria is described as a developing economy. Developing economy explains the extent by which men and women should contribute to develop workable ways or strategies in order to achieve economic growth and development. It revitalizes the dominant potentialities of every youth in providing job employment for others rather than seeking out for employment. It also assists to underscore the responsibilities of the government in fostering an environment of growth for entrepreneurial initiatives. It further opens avenues for the government to develop the right strategies especially in addressing poverty in the country (Erlinda D, 2011).
It is envisaged that government at all levels will have to put in place all necessary infrastructures to promote the growth and development of small and medium scale enterprises (SME) in the country to enable Nigeria attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) target set by the United Nations by the year 2012 and Nigeria vision 20-20-20. A vibrant SMSE sector is critical in the realization of MDGs objective. Experts have observed that Nigeria may not likely meet the MDGs target by reducing poverty by 50% by the year 2015 considering the present status of SMSE operations in Nigeria.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Substantially, governments of Nigeria (federal, state and local) are making effort to promote the development of small and medium scale enterprises and other related programmes in support but then, much is still desired interms of commitment of funds, mobilization, minimization of corruption and performance evaluation mechanisms and above all leveraging on the macro environmental operations variables (Mawoli, M.A. and Aliyu, A.N, 2010).
Nigeria still falls far short of the economic and social progress required to impact the well being of average Nigerian given that over half of the population lives on less than one dollar a day (Otah, Erlinda, 2011). Nigeria is also one of the top three countries in the world that has the largest population of poor people. Nigeria remains off-track on achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) including the goal of having the number of people who live in extreme poverty. The enormity of the challenge is corroborated by Nigeria’s low score on the Human Development Index (HDI), an index that means the average achievement of a country in terms of the welfare and quality of life of its people. It was reported that Nigeria is one that has the highest infant mortality rate in Africa and indeed worse than those of Ghana, Burkina Faso and Benin.

In education, the quality of schooling is adversely affected by large class sizes, lack of teaching materials and equipment, and lack of qualified teachers, etc. Doing business in Nigeria is hampered by poor access to infrastructure and insecurity of lives and property, political instability in some quarters. The supply of electricity is often unreliable thereby distorting business climate. According to World Bank / IFC business ranking 2008, Nigeria ranked an aggregate 125 out of the 183 economies assessed (Erlinda D. 2011).

1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The research work is designed to achieve the following specific objectives:
i. To reveal the impact of course of study on students attitudes towards entrepreneurship development.
ii. To identify the reasons for the slow pace of entrepreneurship growth and development in Nigeria.
iii. To identify the environmental factors influencing individual entrepreneurial spirit.
iv. To reveal the extent to which government is contributing to entrepreneurship development.
v. To identify the roles of entrepreneurship towards the development of Nigerian economy.