Paper Title
Appraisal of Entrepreneurship Education in Nigerian Tertiary Institutions For Job Creation and Poverty Eradication: A Study of Abia State Polytechnic, Nigeria.

Abstract
Entrepreneurship education is now becoming an important means and a valuable additional strategy to create jobs and improve livelihoods and economic dependence in Nigeria. Problems of unemployment as experienced in Nigeria has contributed to all source of vices in our society such as political hooliganism, armed robbery, child trafficking, kidnapping, ethnic militias group etc. The study appraises the entrepreneurship education in Nigerian tertiary institutions in relation to practical skills acquisition, job creation, poverty eradication and the envisaged challenges. The population for the study was 6184 HND II students who were exposed to EED 413 (Entrepreneurship Development) curriculum. The sample for the study was 376 drawn using stratified random sampling techniques from the three school of the polytechnic. Questionnaire was used to collect data from the respondents. The instrument was validated by staff of Centre for Entrepreneurship Education (CEED) and a Statistician, from dept of statistics, Abia State Polytechnic, Aba, with a reliability coefficient greater than 0.5 using chi-square goodness of fit test. Using mean scores and percentages, the results from the responses were analysed. Findings of the study revealed that the students were not exposed to the practical aspect of the skills and equally agreed that they would face the enlisted challenges in the practice of the skills. Based on the findings of the study, implications were drawn and recommendations made. Keywords- entrepreneurship education, skills acquisition, job creation, poverty eradication.