Acquisition of Entrepreneurial Skill in the Face of Covid-19 Pandemic among Students of Higher Institutions in Northern Nigeria

James Baba Adinoyi, Nasiru Audu, Jacob Enewo Sanni & Chomo Josephine Dung, Volume 3 Issue 2, December 2022 Pages 31-40, Published: 2022-12-09

Abstract

This study aims at finding out the entrepreneurial skills that the students of higher institutions in the Northern Nigeria region were able to acquire in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak that in resulted to closing down of schools in order to curtail the spread of the virus. Specifically, students of Federal University, Gusau (FUG) (North-west), Federal Polytechnic, Nasarawa (FPN) (North-central) and Federal Polytechnic, Mubi (FPM) (North-east) respectively were administered questionnaires. The results of the finding revealed that the majority of the students in the three institutions had a strong desire to acquire entrepreneurial skills during the school closed down; and they were able to acquire farming, fashion design, hairdressing, technical works, trading, computer operation, art and printing, food and catering amongst others entrepreneurial skills. This opportunity perhaps was due to the incomplete lockdown that was observed in most places in the region. In addition, the results revealed that the majority of the students from the three schools acquired entrepreneurial skills in farming and fashion design except for FPM where students who learned fashion design were few. Technically, students from FPN and FPM who learned technical works were more in number compared to FUG. Also, students of FUG who learned other entrepreneurial skills that are not mentioned were more in number compared to FPN and FPM. Furthermore, from the three schools, results indicated that many students wish to be self-employed after graduation following the stint in their various fields of entrepreneurial skills, while few wish not to be self-employed.