An Assessment of Relevance of the Pedagogical Methods in the Teaching of the Entrepreneurship Programme in Ghanaian Polytechnics: A Case Study of Cape Coast Polytechnic

Abstract

Entrepreneurship education is increasingly engaging the attention of both developing and developed countries as a mechanism through which wealth can be created and as a panacea to youth unemployment. As a result of this increasing attention, a number of tertiary institutions have introduced programmes to teach entrepreneurship. It is in connection with this that this research was undertaken to assess the relevance of the existing pedagogical approaches to Entrepreneurship education.  The population used in the study consisted of final year Higher National Diploma students of the 2013/2014 academic year group and lecturers who taught the course. Stratified random sampling procedure was used to select the student respondents and the purposive sampling technique was also used to select the lecturers who teach the course. Primary data were gathered through two set of questionnaires and an interview guide. Statistical tools such as frequencies, percentages, Means and standard deviation were used to analyse the data. The results revealed that the pedagogical methods adopted in imparting entrepreneurial knowledge to students are purely based on the passive traditional teaching methods. The study concludes that for the Entrepreneurship programme to be sustained and have relevance, teaching should move away from the passive traditional teaching methods where students are lectured to a situation where students are given real, and practical business scenarios to deal with and provide remedies.