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Top1. Introduction
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) finds the practical application in different domains - national, organisational and individual levels. At the national level, the government manifests its social responsibility to the society and the people through the provision of an enabling legal and regulatory environment for businesses to thrive. In the case of Nigeria, having observed the rising rates of unemployment and poverty in Nigeria, the government through the Ministry of Education introduced entrepreneurship education as a sustainable means of redressing the scourge of unemployment and rising abject poverty. The introduction of entrepreneurship education into tertiary institutions’ curricula cuts across different disciplines and academic departments. The policy thrust of EDP at the three levels of tertiary institutions is the acquisition of entrepreneurial skills by the students to empower them for self-employment after graduation. It should be emphasised that the introduction of EDP into a tertiary institution is a novel initiative of the Federal Government of Nigeria. Entrepreneurship education has been defined as a specialised course designed to inculcate in students as pragmatic learners the rudiments of business development, opportunity identification, risk-taking, innovation management, capability for coordinating human and material resources and skills for creating new products/services for existing and new markets (Sofoluwe et al., 2013; Lawal et al., 2014). It offers a pragmatic and meaningful interaction between learners and their instructors, for the purpose of developing the abilities of learners to identify, evaluate and generate ideas for solving business-related problems in a unique way (Towobola and Raimi, 2011). At a general level, the zeal to promote entrepreneurship at the institutional level has been heightened in contemporary times, because entrepreneurial activity through the creation of new businesses has emerged as an effective means of revitalising stagnated economies, as well as solving unemployment problems through the creation of new job opportunities (Gürol and Atsan, 2006). In Malaysia, the policy thrust of entrepreneurship education is driven by three interrelated factors, namely: (a) the need to justify government’s enormous funding allocation for the promotion of entrepreneurship, and small and medium enterprises (SMEs); (b) the need to solve rising graduate unemployment problems, which has risen over time; and (3) the need to change the mindsets of graduates from job-seeking mentality from government and private-sector employment (Mansor and Othman, 2011; Yusof et al., 2008). To ensure, that the objectives of entrepreneurship education are achieved, Malaysian government made entrepreneurial subjects compulsory from primary school level to tertiary level with a view of changing the mindsets of students from the foundational level so that they can develop to be college graduates that would rather become self-employed rather than salary earners.
EDP as an intervention programme finds a theoretical foundation in human capital theory (HCT). The HCT prescribes education, training and skills acquisition as mechanisms for the attainment of organisational productivity, workers’ efficiency and realization of impactful socio-economic development. The HCT essentially rests on the works of Schultz (1975), who describes the entrepreneur as a form of human capital, and who based on experience and skills propels changes in the society. The theory recommends education, training, skills acquisition and capacity-building as means for the attainment of economic growth, entrepreneurial activity and technological progress, therefore spending on human capital is a worthwhile investment required to enhance productivity (Schultz, 1975, Simpeh, 2011).