Attitudes of private higher education students towards entrepreneurship: A case of distance learners in Wolaita Sodo and Hossana Towns

Abstract

In the past, students of higher learning institutions in Ethiopia had guarantee of employment either in the public sector or in private firms. Currently, they are finding it difficult to secure employment in these sectors. Therefore, this study was aimed at exploring self-employment intentions of private higher education students and their attitudes towards entrepreneurship. By using convenience and snowball samplings, the primary data were gathered over a two month period, through the administration of a self-completion questionnaire delivered to 180 final year distance learning students from Business and Economics fields. The survey data were analyzed using SPSS. The good majority of the students agreed by expressing their wish to start business in an ideally considered age level of 31-40 as they would like to be their own boss. They also believed that they have business skills and knowledge, required for business ownership than students who do not want to start business. Nevertheless, the most inhibiting factors for students who did not want to start business are the shortage of initial capital and fear of taking risks. They also considered business ownership as giving them less control over their lives and, therefore, believe it would be easier to work for someone else. Interestingly, 81% of these students expressed their belief that good business support structure would encourage them to start business. Therefore, these findings have implications for academicians, educators in entrepreneurship, policy makers, enterprise support agencies and future young entrepreneurs.