Developing Entrepreneurship in Pakistan through Higher Education Deficits and Strategies for Imprvement

Abstract

Entrepreneurship education has been defined as ―a collection of formalized teachings that informs, trains, and educates anyone interested in participating in socioeconomic development through a project to promote entrepreneurship awareness, business creation, or small business development‖. For decades, entrepreneurs have been identified as critical change agents in socio-economic development in the developed and under developing countries. It is probably safe to say that some countries have had more success than others in the promotion of entrepreneurship. In Pakistan, the entrepreneurial education is still an alien discipline and it is no more than a decade back that the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan realized its importance with the changing global trends and considered its incorporation in the higher education. However, still it is just limited to a single or two subjects in the undergraduate and postgraduate Business Administration. Self employment and Entrepreneurship is referred as the best solution. But entrepreneurship is not the function that might be outcome of simple efforts. It requires a regular and permanent attitude as part of personality. Therefore the research intended to conduct the study to explore deficit and strategies to improve entrepreneurship regarding higher education in Pakistan. The study was descriptive in nature. It would utilize quantitative cum qualitative research techniques. Quantitative data was obtained through questionnaires and qualitative data from open ended questionnaire, recordings and interviews. Population was comprised of 152 teachers and 1240 Students who are getting entrepreneurship education in the 30 Business Incubation Centre's (BIC) supported by Higher Education Commission in public sector universities providing education on entrepreneurship and engineering degree programs all over Pakistan. 20 Business Incubation Centre's (BIC) were randomly selected. From each of 20 centers, two teachers and ten students were selected through convenient sampling technique. So 40 teachers and 200 students were the sample of the research. A questionnaire on five point Liker scale was developed to get information from teachers and students. It was designed in five parts; Part one was designed to obtain participants‟ personal data; Part two was about the role of HEC in developing entrepreneurship education in Pakistan; part three was about the characteristics of entrepreneur and part four was consisted of statements about major deficits in developing entrepreneurship education in Pakistan. Part five was consisted of 4 open ended questions to get the participants personal views on entrepreneurship in Pakistan through Higher Education. Data was analyzed through descriptive and interpretive approaches. Questionnaires were analyzed by frequency distribution. Mean scores were calculated. Percentages were calculated. Graphs were used for representing the highest and lowest frequencies on each item of the questionnaire. Qualitative data was analyzed using thematic approach. All the interviews were transcribed from the voice recorder and were studied extensively. The data was coded on the basis of the categories. The final step in the analysis of the data obtained from interviews were identifying and creating themes.