PERCEPTION OF ENGINEERING STUDENTS ON ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION

Economic trends and changes in the workforce needs have driven many engineering universities to consider offering entrepreneurship education to their students. The objective of this study was to explore a broad range of perception toward of entrepreneurship education on engineering students and to evaluate how the teaching of entrepreneurship education can prepare engineering student to become an entrepreneur. The study was descriptive in nature and data were gathered through questionnaires and observation analysis. In order to achieve the objective of the study, simple sampling techniques were used. Survey data were collected from 230 engineering students enrolled in the senior - level capstone design courses in five engineering departments (Electromechanical Engineering, Software Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Food processing Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Mining Engineering and Civil Engineering) with established entrepreneurship programs in Addis Ababa Science and Technology University. Data collected by structured questionnaire was an analysisof descriptive and inferential statistics. The study found that more than 2/3 of the respondent did not have an intention to start a business within the next 5 years, more than 3/4 ofthe students were disagreed on the curriculum that did not encourageto have practical experience. Majority of Students were perceived that the university did not promote the entrepreneurship as per the expectation. Based on these findings, conclusions were drawn and some feasible recommendations were made.