Abstract:
Due to the downturn of global economies, high global unemployment rates,
and dwindling economies at country specific levels, the increasing demand for soft
skills, engineering education has shifted from the typical and traditional technical
paradigm to a multidisciplinary approach. This has presented some challenges for
engineering education. One of the challenges or opportunities is the inclusion of
entrepreneurship education into the technical engineering curriculum. Although
engineering graduates have the technical education and expertise, they are expected
to become supervisors, managers and business owners. As such they are entrusted
with resources (human, material and financial) to efficiently utilise and meet the goals
of their respective organisations. Also, during the period of their study, engineering
students may discover innovative ideas or design new experimental prototypes, which
require further development and upscaling into full products that are ready for
marketing. These require incubation, management and entrepreneurship skills.
Therefore, there is the need to include entrepreneurship education in university
engineering curricula. However, there is still an unending debate among engineering
institutions and researchers on whether to include, and/or the extent of the inclusion
of entrepreneurship and management modules in the engineering curricula.
Furthermore, students in engineering entrepreneurship programmes gain insights into
designing for end users working in, and managing interdisciplinary teams,
communicating effectively, thinking critically, understanding business basics and
solving open-ended problems (Byers, Seeling, Sheppard, & Weilerstein, 2013).
Therefore, this study was designed to discuss the role entrepreneurship education
plays in engineering education. The study first documented the existing and available
literature on entrepreneurship education and engineering education, followed by
examining the engineering students’ perceptions on entrepreneurship education in
their engineering education curricula. The results indicated that, globally, many
engineering institutions have in different ways infused entrepreneurship education into
their curricula. However, research findings and participating engineering students
have opposing views on the benefits and impacts of entrepreneurship education on
future job prospects or owning self-business. The result of this study has implications
for schools of business and engineering education.