Assessment of the Students' Attitude toward Business with Regard to Higher Education Curriculum: Case Study of Esfarayen University

Unemployment of university graduates is one of the critical problems of the society. The unemployed university graduate does not have the opportunity to use what they have learned and have no way to enter the work market. This indicates necessity of more coordination between higher education system and the industry and between the graduate’s capabilities and the industries’ need for work force. Through this, the limited resources available to higher education system is utilized in a more optimal manner. The present study is an attempt to assess the student’s attitude toward entrepreneurship in light of higher education curriculum. To this end, Esfarayen University of technology was studied as case study. Data gathering tool was attitude toward entrepreneurship questionnaire. As revealed by the results, the students tended to have neutral attitude toward business and there was no significant difference between students of different fields in this regard. However, boys and girls had significant difference as to their attitude toward business. With these results, the targets of the 20 years outlook to support entrepreneurship in higher education are not going to be met. To make the higher education curriculum more responsive to variety of challenges and needs it is notable that entrepreneurship training and empowerment through the curriculum must be taken as a new necessity by curriculum planners of Iran’s higher education system.

Keywords:

Entrepreneurship , unemployment , higher education , curriculum