Role of Socio- Economic Status, Secondary & Engineering Level Education in Development of Entrepreneurial Attitude & Activities of Technical Undergraduate Students

Abstract

Significance of institutions of higher education augment manifold when it is able to produce not only skilful and employable human resource but also help develop attitude among its students to opt entrepreneurship as a career choice. Institutions of education system are distinctive place of knowledge transfer and innovation which help towards nurturing entrepreneurial activities. While in India such entrepreneurial activities by institutions of higher education are not common yet, in Russia and China factories and firms are owned and operated by higher education institutions (Agarwal, 2009). An attempt has been made with the help of this paper to know the entrepreneurial attitude of the students at undergraduate engineering level belonging to Uttar Pradesh Technical University. This research aims to find the role of education at secondary and engineering level towards the promotion of familiarity about entrepreneurship as a career choice and also the amount of interests in the students to take up this career. 206 students from different engineering branches are tested using the Entrepreneurial Attitude Orientation scale. Results show that significant difference exists between the thinking of female and male students towards entrepreneurship. The research identifies that students are not aware much about entrepreneurship. The respondents, who have gone under this study, have revealed that education system, so far, has hardly been helpful in developing awareness about entrepreneurship. Irrespective of societal and parental pressure of getting the good job, today's generation is willing to take entrepreneurship as a career choice, provided they get proper guidance and awareness.