Repositioning Entrepreneurship Education for Youth Employment and Sustainable Economic Development in Nigeria

Abstract

Nigeria continues to experience persistently high levels of youth unemployment despite numerous policy interventions aimed at stimulating economic growth and improving graduate employability. Although entrepreneurship education has been widely promoted as a viable strategy for addressing unemployment, its implementation remains constrained by weak institutional support, inadequate funding, limited practical training, obsolete curricula and weak linkages between educational institutions and industry. Adopting a qualitative, conceptual review of contemporary scholarly literature, policy documents and development-agency reports, this paper examines the role of entrepreneurship education in addressing youth unemployment and identifies strategic interventions capable of strengthening its effectiveness. It demonstrates that entrepreneurship education contributes significantly to innovation, employability, enterprise creation and inclusive economic development when supported by competency-based curricula, experiential learning, digital entrepreneurship, business incubation and effective public-private partnerships. The paper concludes that repositioning entrepreneurship education within a coordinated national innovation framework represents a sustainable pathway for reducing youth unemployment and promoting inclusive economic development in Nigeria.