www.tjprc.org editor@tjprc.org International Journal of English an d Li teratu re (IJEL) ISSN(P): 2249-6912; ISSN(E): 2249-8028 Vol . 4, Issue 6, De c 2014, 95-104 © TJPRC Pvt. Ltd. INCLUSION OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION IN THE CURRICULUM OF NIGERIAN UNIVERSITIES FORSELF RELIANCE: CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS P. N. UZOEGWU & CAJETAN IKECHUKWU EGBE Department of Arts Education, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria ABSTRACT The study sought to find out the challenges and prospects of inclusion of entrepreneurship education in the curriculum of Nigerian universities for self reliance. Three research questions guided the study. The sample for the study was 450 final year students who had taken entrepreneurship course in their third year in the Nsukka campus of the University of Nigeria. The respondents were drawn through disproportionate random sampling technique. A 40-item questionnaire was used to collect data from the respondents. Fifteen of the items were on attitudinal challenges; ten were on methodological challenges, while fifteen were on the strategies that can increase the prospects of entrepreneurship education. The instrument was face validated by three lecturers in the Faculty of Education, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The results were analysed using mean scores. The results showed that there were attitudinal and methodological challenges facing entrepreneurship education at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Some strategies were also found to be capable of boosting the prospects of entrepreneurship education in Nigerian universities. The paper recommended, among others, that entrepreneurship education should not be taught as a general studies course; rather it should be domic iled in students’ faculties or departments. Also, the entrepreneurship potentials of courses in students’ base departments should be explored and imparted to the students using indepth, practical and exploratory methods. More aggressive campaign should be carried out to disabuse the minds of the students on the negative attitude they have to entrepreneurship education and self employment. KEYWORDS: Entrepreneurship Education, Self Reliance, University Curriculum, Inclusion, Challenges and Prospects INTRODUCTION In Nigeria today the population is growing speedily, unemployment rate is rising astronomically while job opportunities are getting leaner and leaner. The unemployment rate has gone so high, reaching as high as 19.7% in 2010 (NBS, 2010). Graduate unemployment, a thing unheard of in the 1960s and 70s, has become endemic. Oduwaiye (2005) reports that Nigerian tertiary institutions graduate over 20,000 students each year while in 2010, the federal government promised only 10,000 jobs. The situation is even worse in 2014. Many graduates have waited for over five years for jobs without any coming by. Abubakar (2010) concurs that in Nigeria, there are weak national economies, high population growth and a growing labour force with high incidence of shrinking or stagnant wage employment opportunities especially in the industrial sector. Thus, in order to create opportunities for self employment, reduce poverty, add value to the economy and reduce youth restiveness, the federal government directed institutions of higher learning to include entrepreneurship education in their academic programmes as a way of addressing these challenges and promoting self reliance among the youths. As a follow up, the Nigerian Universities Commission (NUC) in 2011 released entrepreneurship course contents and instructed