The effectiveness of entrepreneurship education in Malaysia

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to trace the development of entrepreneurship education in Malaysia; and to evaluate its effectiveness and limitations.

Design/methodology/approach

Primary data are collected to reveal students' perceptions of the effectiveness of the entrepreneurship teaching and their knowledge about entrepreneurship.

Findings

The results show that entrepreneurship education in Malaysia is not matching students' skill expectations with skill acquisition. The findings also indicate that the level of understanding on “what is entrepreneurship” is still low among the respondents selected in this paper.

Research limitations/implications

The paper only concerns students' perceptions towards the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education in their respective institutions. Results from this paper are limited in terms of their ability to demonstrate “actual” outcomes of entrepreneurship education.

Practical implications

The paper provides an important exploratory analysis of the state of entrepreneurship education in Malaysia to enable further research to be taken in the area of entrepreneurship education. The findings provide valuable insight on effective teaching methodologies in the area of entrepreneurship education.

Originality/value

The paper expands the framework of Morris et al., Drucker, and Gorman et al. to provide a basis to improve the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education in Malaysia.

Citation

Yu Cheng, M., Sei Chan, W. and Mahmood, A. (2009), "The effectiveness of entrepreneurship education in Malaysia", Education + Training, Vol. 51 No. 7, pp. 555-566. https://doi.org/10.1108/00400910910992754