Entrepreneurial education and performance of youth- owned micro and small enterprises in Bungoma County, Kenya

Abstract

Micro and small enterprises form (MSEs) a major driver of trade, industrial development and employment creation in Kenya with an approximately of 80% employment expected from the sector. The Kenyan government underscored the importance of MSEs sector among the youth by creating the department of youth development which champions Youth enterprises development, encourage savings, promotes entrepreneurial experience and promotes products promotion to the untapped regional market. The objective of the study was to establish the influence entrepreneurial education on the performance of youth-owned Micro and Small businesses in Bungoma County. The research used descriptive survey. The study focused on all the 475 MSEs youth groups that benefitted from the government YEDF loan and a sample of 95 groups was used. The primary data was collected using well thought-out questionnaires with the closed-ended questions. Filling of the questionnaires were done by the manager of the youth-owned MSEs which were dropped and picked later. The quantitative information items of the questionnaire were given ordinal values and analyzed using, frequency tables mean and percentages. Inferential data analysis was done using Pearson correlation coefficient and regression analysis (multiple regression analysis). The findings were presented in tables. The study found that majority of youths trained on financial budgeting, book keeping, costing and pricing of goods this enhanced the performance of youth-owned micro and small enterprises Bungoma County. The study further found that product improvement, novelties in production and new marketing strategic innovations influenced the performance of Youths-owned Micro and Small Enterprises Bungoma County. The study also established that strategic planning; implementation of strategic plans and evaluation of business strategic options influenced the performance of micro and small enterprises in Bungoma County. The study recommended that innovations and mentorship programs that are adopted by mentors in social support groups should consider embracing frequent entrepreneurial training, implemented in a periodic phases to help in monitoring the entrepreneurs who are participating and that formal education needs to be tailored towards learners acquiring skills that are related to entrepreneurial activities. Finally the study recommends that the policy makers who are interested in enhancing the performance of youth related businesses should focus on offering achievement motivation training to potential and existing youth entrepreneurs