BASIC FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING SKILLS REQUIRED FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEVELOPMENT BY SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

ABSTRACT
The title of this study was designed to determine the basic financial accounting skills required for entrepreneurship development by senior secondary school students in Anambra state. The study adopted descriptive research design which involved financial accounting lecturers in public higher institutions and accounting teachers in government owned secondary schools in Anambra state. The population of the study was 207 financial accounting lecturers and teachers in Anambra state. Six research questions and six null hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance to guide the study and at 194 degree of freedom. The instrument used for data collection was structured questionnaire item statement. To ensure that the instrument measures what it suppose intended to measure, the questionnaire item statement were subjected to face validation by three experts. Cronbach Alpha was used to determine the internal consistence of the instrument items. The average reliability co-efficient computed for the instrument was found to be 0.880. Mean was used to answer the research questions while t- test was used to test the hypothesis. The study found out that prime books entry skills were very much required for entrepreneurship development by senior secondary school leavers in Anambra state. The study also found that cash book entry skills were also very much required for entrepreneurship development by senior secondary school leavers in the state of study. The study also discovered that bank reconciliation skills were very much required for entrepreneurship development by senior secondary leavers in Anambra state. Ledger accounting skills were also found to be very much required for entrepreneurship development by senior secondary school leavers in the state of study. The study also found that trading, profit and loss account and balance sheet skills were very much required for entrepreneurship development by senior secondary school 3 students in Anambra state. The result of the study also showed that there was no significance difference in the mean ratings of financial accounting lecturers and teachers on the prime book entry skills required for entrepreneurship development. The result of the study also showed that there was no significant difference in the mean ratings of accounting lecturers and teachers on the cash book entry skills, bank reconciliation skills, ledger skills, trading, profit and loss and balance sheet skill required for entrepreneurship development by senior secondary school 3 students in Anambra State. As a result of these, it was recommended that financial accounting be made a compulsory subject in Senior Secondary Schools in Nigeria considering the need to reduce unemployment and poverty level among the Nigerian Youths.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Entrepreneurship has been observed to be featuring and will continue to feature as a major theme in both national and international conferences. This is because of its immense contributions in the economic development of both developing and developed nations. It is an ability of an individual to identify and extract economic activities within his environment which others are unable to identify. It deals with the identification and extraction of new economic ideas and strategies which are not yet been tapped by any one. Akanbi (2010) defined entrepreneurship as the process of creating something different in value by devoting the necessary time and effort, assuming the accompanying financial, psychological and social risks and receiving the resulting rewards of monetary and personal satisfaction. Entrepreneurship is the ability to turn ideas into action by an individual. Agomuo (2002) viewed entrepreneurship as a process of bringing together creative and innovative ideas, combining them with management and organization skills in order to combine people, money and resources to meet an identified need and thereby create wealth. A person who engages in an entrepreneurship process is an entrepreneur.

An entrepreneur is therefore an individual who combines both natural and human resources in order to create wealth. Elbridge in Muhammed, Malik, Arslam, Salman and Abid (2013) identified an entrepreneur as a person who runs the business and bears the risk for profit and loss. Entrepreneurs are generally classified according to types of business, technology use, motivation, growth and entrepreneurial stages of development.