Implementing Service Learning for Creativity and Entrepreneurial Skill Development in Nigerian Higher Education

Despite the implementation of entrepreneurship skills development programmes in Nigerian higher education institutions in response to the National Universities Commission (NUC) policy, the sector has failed to equip graduates with the capacity to venture into enterprise activities and the creation of valuable products and services. Hence the lingering high rate of unemployment and the poor state of development of the Nigerian small business sector. The service-learning (SL) curriculum delivery model; an experiential credit-bearing educational activity is hereby proposed as a cogent approach to the development of the creativity and entrepreneurship skills of higher education students. Using the entrepreneurship education programme of the University of Port Harcourt as a case study, and an analysis of the success factors of the SL model, the study sought to ascertain; whether the service–learning model can be implemented within the confines of the NUC policy on entrepreneurship education, the requisite policies that would facilitate faculty commitment to development of learners’ entrepreneurial skills and the instructional delivery/assessment strategies that would achieve entrepreneurial skills development objectives within the SL model. It was revealed that the SL model can be implemented within the NUC policy on entrepreneurship education. The model would utilize enterprise-oriented business activities to expose learners to the higher-order thinking domain where knowledge is creatively applied in task performance for solving identified problems of the society. The study recommends that remuneration and appraisal/promotion policies be instituted to motivate faculty commitment to facilitation of learner performance and assessment of learner achievement of the objectives of the entrepreneurship skills development programme.