ABSTRACT

This study investigated entrepreneurship education skills acquisition for self-employment among librarians and library educators in universities in South East Nigeria. The study was guided by six objectives with the corresponding research questions, four null hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. The descriptive survey design was adopted with a study population of 149 librarians and library educators from the five (5) university based Library and Information Sciences schools in South East Nigeria. A survey census was used since the population is a manageable one, thus, there was no sampling. Data for the study was collected using a 93 item structured questionnaire titled “Questionnaire on Entrepreneurship Education Skills Acquisition for Self-Employment among Librarians and Library Educators in Universities in South East Nigeria (QEESALLE). The questionnaire was validated by three (3) validates, two (2) experts and one (1) from the Measurement and Evaluation Unit, Science Department all from Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike. The reliability of the instrument was determined using Cronbatch Alpha which yielded an overall reliability index of 0.94. With the help of five research assistants, the researcher administered 149 copies of the questionnaires while 140 copies representing 94% were retrieved and found usable. The findings of the study showed that librarians and library educators are required to possess entrepreneurial skills for self-employment. They not only required to possess personal entrepreneurial characteristics but to possess them at a great extent in order to be self-employed and also create jobs for others. Also, the level of adequacy of entrepreneurial librarianship courses was found to be adequate. Numerous entrepreneurial opportunities open to librarians and library educators were identified as well as the militating challenges against acquisition of entrepreneurship skills. Furthermore, a host of strategies to encourage the acquisition of entrepreneurship education skills were identified. The test of hypotheses revealed among others results of hypotheses that there is no significant difference between the mean ratings of librarians and library educators on the extent of possession of entrepreneurial characteristics for self-employment in South East Nigeria. In view of the fact that the findings of the study revealed that lack of funding, workshops, laboratories, inadequate skilled entrepreneurship lecturers, poor power supply, etc, impeded acquisition of entrepreneurship education skills. The study recommended that governments at all levels, in collaboration with the private sector, should make concerted efforts to address these militating factors.