Entrepreneurship Education and Business Success of Women Entrepreneurs in Awka, Anambra State, Nigeria

It is argued that entrepreneurship education focuses on instilling critical life skills that would improve students’ capacity to work in the real world. The study looked at the impact of entrepreneurship education on the business success of women entrepreneurs in Awka, Nigeria's Anambra State. A survey research design was employed with a population of 1200 registered entrepreneurial women in Awka. According to the Enterprise Agency of Nigeria (EAN), there are 1200 registered women entrepreneurs in Awka. The population was further reduced to 300 as a sample size using Yamane’s (1967) formula . A questionnaire was used to source data. Regression was used in analyzing the formulated hypothesis. It was publicized that entrepreneurship education has a positive and major effect on the business success of women entrepreneurs in Awka. It was resolved that entrepreneurship education is a vital tool used by entrepreneurial women in Awka to achieve their business success and increase the growth of their businesses. The study recommended among others that more entrepreneurial opportunities be created by education stakeholders as this will ensure social justice, instills confidence in and build the entrepreneurial mindset of the women thereby stimulating the economy. Further research is expected to be carried out on entrepreneurship education and profitability of women entrepreneurs in Nigeria.


Introduction
Entrepreneurship education is believed to be a very vital vehicle for navigating through the challenging waters of entrepreneurship businesses, especially in Awka, Anambra state. According to Eze (2019), creating a pragmatic understanding of the feasibility and attractiveness of entrepreneurship through the educational process at a young age can enhance the supply of entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship education and ideas among students will increase entrepreneurial willingness. Students can then set up their business ventures after education thereby being self-sufficient and reducing idleness, inefficiency, and social vices in the society (Maina, 2013). No matter where you turn in today's digital economy, stories thrive on the huge economic, social, and informative benefits of entrepreneurship. Due to the aforementioned, entrepreneurship education programs at colleges and universities all around the world are flourishing (Anoke, Osita, Maduka & Onu, 2021). A few years ago, only a small number of schools offered entrepreneurship courses, today, more than 200 educational institutions across the country offer one form of entrepreneurship and vocational training or the other (Barde & Tende, 2018). Abiola (2012) noted that entrepreneurship education should arm the youth with modern functional abilities and awareness to build up their entrepreneurial character, skills, and attitude and prepare them for future engagement. This characteristic plays a vital role in developing an entrepreneurial eco-system that promotes effectiveness, efficiency, and innovation in today's competitive business environment (Alarpe, 2017). Abbey and Truman (2016) noted that entrepreneurship education can provide the base for innovation, positive thinking, risk-taking, and constructing a value system through the development of an entrepreneurial culture that drives wealth creation and accelerates innovation. Entrepreneurs' attitude towards transforming an idea into profitable action has been a culture from the dawn of civilization around the world and has changed the world positively. Entrepreneurs anchor on such ideas, create value and satisfy human wants and needs through innovative options (Asiama, 2017). Innovative entrepreneurs perceive things differently as they see clear opportunities, think beyond every constraint and work towards the organizational goal. In doing so, they have the passion and zeal that is always the motivating factors and propellers to take the necessary business risk to achieve their business dream (Daniel, 2019). Entrepreneurship education is more than just the process of starting and completing a business venture; its essence is felt with time and catalyzes change. It is acknowledged universally as the main agent of the social, political, and economic civilization. As a result,  maintained that entrepreneurs also want to look deeper into the business world and navigate through troubled business waters to grow and succeed in business. Despite the growing number of new and expanding entrepreneurship education programs in this era, many women entrepreneurs hardly succeed in their business. The increasing numbers of new and emerging entrepreneurship education programs in Awka, Anambra State notwithstanding, many female entrepreneurs struggle to break even. Many still believe that entrepreneurship education does not worth investing in; that entrepreneurship orientation does not contribute to their business success, and that their entrepreneurship idea does not give them an edge over and above their competitors. It is against this backdrop that the researcher embarks on this study. The objective of the study is to determine the effect of entrepreneurship education on the business success of women entrepreneurs in Awka. The study hypothesized that: Ho1: Entrepreneurship tutoring does not contribute to the business success of women entrepreneurs in Awka.

Literature Review
Entrepreneurship education captures the attention of both developed and developing countries of the world today. This is because it allows people to realize their business potential; it enables and prepares individuals in the society to participate actively in and profit from their national economy; it facilitates economic advancement; and offers the groundwork for positive economic change (Abubakar, 2018). Entrepreneurship education is a vital tool for economic viability. The recent global economic predicaments currently experienced, caused by the global pandemic of Covid 19, suggest that the entire world is in a war between qualitative entrepreneurship education and total business collapse (Anoke, Eze, Nwaoye & Odumu, 2022). Many are losing their job while companies are folding down, but the world is still looking forward to entrepreneurs who will think outside the box, take the required risk, and save the world economy from total collapse (Ubonm, 2013). The new business openings around the world today have enabled entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs to dig deeper and succeed better in modern businesses (Okoye, 2019). In the last two and a half decades, entrepreneurship education has been one of the economic tools that have piqued the interest of governments and experts in both rich and developing countries. Government at all levels are resolute in working together to foster entrepreneurship and boost entrepreneurship development, to contribute meaningfully to general economic growth and development. This is why entrepreneurial development continues to be a vanguard in policy deliberations in countries like Nigeria (Gbande, 2018). Uche (2020) noted that the most economically fragile nations in the world that paid key attention to entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship education are bouncing back economically. Corporate entities today are deemed more diversified, sophisticated, and complex than it was years past. A firm must have a vision and drive toward innovation to develop and maintain a competitive edge, survive and grow in this new (Adebanjo, 2019). Presently, businesses in Nigeria either big or small will achieve less success in their business ventures until hard work, commitment, devotion, quality consciousness, and high customer service are imbibed in their policy blueprint. A unified vision, customer-focused drive, instantaneous customer service, and high quality and inventive work environment, separated into several success components or multiple milestones are required for today's effective transformation of a business into a success story (Ezie, 2019). Many entrepreneurs in Nigeria have witnessed progressive business growth from the start; since they obtained entrepreneurship education and training traits and put them into practice (Rasheed, 2020). Apart from broad categories such as competent human resources, successful marketing tactics, and appropriate funds, there are several other variables (concentration, devotion, hard work, and customer loyalty) that can contribute to a company's advancement and success. Copstake (2016) opined that apart from inner variables such as competent human resources, successful marketing tactics, and appropriate funds allocation, there are many other silent indicators like proper concentration, innovativeness, customer satisfaction, and loyalty) that can aid the company's advancement and successive growth. Business success is certain if a businessperson with a strong desire to succeed works consistently and persistently, putting the right material at the right point. Most organizations fail to achieve their desired levels of growth and success as a result of a significant focus on profit rather than customer pleasure, forgetting that today's customer's pay for contentment rather than a product (Abasi, 2016). Aruwa and Okafor (2012) examined the influence of entrepreneurship coaching on entrepreneurial success. The study involved the identification of entrepreneurial factors and the empirical findings supporting the potency of entrepreneurial education to impact business performance. Primary and secondary data were adopted. Descriptive statistics and frequency were performed on the data. There is research evidence accounting for the role of individual and environmental factors in determining business performance. The delivery of entrepreneurship education influences the individual characteristics of entrepreneurs but not all environmental factors can be influenced by entrepreneurship education. An environmental factor like an entrepreneur's network is developable through entrepreneurship education. The study concluded that entrepreneurial success is impacted by entrepreneurship education to the extent of the development of individual and environmental entrepreneurial characteristics. The synergy of entrepreneurship education and business success can be enhanced by identifying business success factors as the basis for entrepreneurship education. The study of Aruwa and Okoafor (2012), though well-constructed, failed to state the population of the primary data from where the sample size was drawn for the primary analysis. In addition, the source(s) of secondary data used was not stated. Agidi (2015) carried out a study to establish the impact of entrepreneurship tutoring on the growth of SMEs in Nigeria's southeast. The study involved the identification of entrepreneurial factors responsible for the growth of SMEs in the zone. The population was 910 registered SMEs in the region. 273 respondents were randomly selected from the population and used the sample size of the study. A questionnaire was used to collect data from the sampled respondents. Regression was equally used to analyze the collected data. The study found that entrepreneurship education influences the individual characteristics of entrepreneurs but environmental factors like family and peer group influence entrepreneurial decisions. The study concluded that entrepreneurial success does not depend on entrepreneurship education acquired. The study, therefore, recommended that the family and peer group should inculcate entrepreneurial culture in their children and get them young by building their entrepreneurial mindset. The study of Agidi (2015), though well-constructed, failed to use the proper statistical tool in determining the sample size from the population, the source of the population was not equally stated.

Research Methodology
Since the data needed for the investigation required the use of a structured questionnaire, a descriptive research design was adopted. The registered women entrepreneurs in Awka formed the population of the study. According to the Enterprise Agency of Nigeria (EAN), there are 1200 registered women entrepreneurs in Awka, which served as the population of the study. The population was further reduced to 300 as a sample size using Yamane's (1967) formula. Of the 300 questionnaires administered to the respondents, only 246 copies were returned and used for the analysis. The questionnaire was exposed to a reliability test to ascertain its reliability of the questionnaire and the instruments used were unique and perfect. The reliability of the instrument was not less than the Alpha value of 0.7    Table 3 shows entrepreneurship education has impacted greatly on the activities of women entrepreneurs in Awka as all the indices are high. However, entrepreneurship education is instrumental to women's entrepreneurial activities in Awka ranked first. Women entrepreneurs in Awka succeed due to entrepreneurship education acquired, and Entrepreneurship coaching promotes social justice, builds confidence, and boosts the economy ranked second, and third respectively.

Source: survey, 2022
Table 4, the respondents strongly agreed (32.52%) that entrepreneurship education has resulted in business expansion in terms of opening new branches among women entrepreneurs in Awka, while the majority agreed (39.84%) with the statement. 12.60% of them were undecided. 4.07% and 10.98% of the respondents disagreed and strongly disagreed respectively. It was also discovered that 32.52% of the respondents who are the majority 32.52% agreed and 31.71% vehemently agreed that there is an increase in sales of the product produced by women entrepreneurs in Awka due to entrepreneurship education knowledge. 9.35% and 14.63% of them equally disagreed and strongly disagreed with the statement respectively. Only 11.79% were undecided. On the issue of effective increase in customer patronage in the business owned by women entrepreneurs in Awka due to entrepreneurship education impact, 31.30% and 35.77% strongly agreed and agreed respectively. 12.19% of the respondents remained undecided, 8.94% and 11.79% disagreed and strongly disagreed with the statement respectively. Author Computation, 2022 Table 5 shows that business success in terms of business expansion, customers' patronage, and sales volume, which ranked first, second and third implies that entrepreneurship education has contributed to the success of women entrepreneurs in Awka. It was evidenced that women-owned businesses expanded in terms of opening new branches in Awka. Also, an increase in sales of goods produced by women entrepreneurs in Awka was noticed while increased customers patronage of women's products in Awka was equally confirmed. Source SPSS version 27.00 Table 6 shows the average and standard deviation, minimum and maximum levels of the variables, as determined by descriptive statistics. The average worth of business success (BS) is 3.11 and entrepreneurship education (ENE) is 3.52. Table 6 also established the standard deviation of the variables Because the f-statistics are significant at the 5% level of significance, the regression result suggests that the model is appropriate for the investigation. The findings also suggest that entrepreneurship coaching has a favorable and major impact on women entrepreneurs' business success in Awka. This is because the P-values are less than 5%. The study resolved that entrepreneurship education has a positive and major effect on the business success of women entrepreneurs in Awka, Anambra State of Nigeria. The R2 = 0.69 specifies that only 69% of the disparity in entrepreneurship education can be used to explain the business success of women entrepreneurs in Awka, Anambra; 31% were not captured by this variable, which is referred to as the error term.

Discussion of Findings
The study established that entrepreneurship education (EE) has a positive and weighty effect on the business success (BS) of women entrepreneurs in Awka. This is in tandem with the findings of Aruwa and Okafor(2012) who discovered a strong nexus between EE and BS. The study also disagrees with the findings of Agidi (2015) who found an inverse relationship between entrepreneurship education and the success of SMEs in southeast Nigeria.

Conclusion and Recommendations
The effect of entrepreneurship education on the business success among women entrepreneurs in Awka, Anambra state was investigated. The study hypothesized that entrepreneurship education has no noticeable effect on business success among women entrepreneurs in Awka. It was found that entrepreneurship education has a positive and substantial effect on the business success of Awka women entrepreneurs. Based on the findings, the study concluded that entrepreneurship education is fundamental to the success of women entrepreneurs in Awka. It is therefore recommended that more entrepreneurial opportunities be created by education stakeholders as this will ensure social justice, instills confidence in and build the entrepreneurial mindset of the people thereby stimulating the economy. Families should inculcate entrepreneurial culture in their children and get them young by building their entrepreneurial mindset early enough.

Contribution to Knowledge
Every research work intends to contribute profoundly to the body of knowledge; as such, this study is not an exception as it will be contributing to the extant literature on entrepreneurship education and its effects on the business success of women entrepreneurs, especially in Awka, Anambra State Nigeria.

Limitations of the Study
This study covers women entrepreneurs in Awka, Anambra state only; their male counterparts were not captured. In addition, a study of this kind is normally confronted with stiff and unfriendly data accessibility as much data are classified and considered confidential.

Ethical Consideration
Oral approval was sorted for and gotten from the sampled respondents before the questionnaire was administered. They were told that the data was being collected only for research reasons. Before, during, and after the delivery of the questionnaire, all Covid-19 guidelines were completely followed. The responders were also assured that the information they gave would be kept completely confidential.