Evaluation of Entrepreneurial Instincts among Preschool Leavers in Akwa Ibom State

Youth unemployment in Nigeria constitutes a considerable burden to resolve, even though enterprise development has been advocated; what remains critical is the depth of spread of entrepreneurial instinct across the population. This study assessed entrepreneurial instincts among preschool leavers, identified their background characteristics, and ascertained the children's profiles of entrepreneurial instinct. The study was conducted in Akwa Ibom State. A multistage sampling procedure was adopted to select Senior secondary schools for data collection. A mixed-method research approach to item generation led to 12-item construct measures. The KMO and Bartlett's test affirmed the tenability of the measurement construct. Descriptive and inferential statistics were deployed, and results were obtained as follows. Most respondents (96%) were 16, and 93% were 17. Most were female (51%), whereas male was 48%. The study showed that most of the parents of the students were business owners, and some were civil servants. However, the result on the level of entrepreneurial instinct among the respondents revealed that 44.6% of the respondents had very low entrepreneurial instinct, 29.2% showed a high level of entrepreneurial instinct, 19.0% showed a virtually excellent level of entrepreneurial instinct, and 7.35% revealed that the respondents had an inferior level of entrepreneurial instinct. This implies that only 19% of the respondents are typically endowed with an entrepreneurial instinct, meaning they are creative, self-confident, can take initiative, have good vision, and are risk-takers. The secondary school curriculum must incorporate entrepreneurial education to foster innovation.