ENTREPRENEURIAL INTENTION OF FEMALE STUDENTS IN TECHNICAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION SECTOR OF SRI LANKA

Abstract

The entrepreneurial intention has received a significant amount of attention from researchers as a tool of development for many countries but there is a lack of evidence for entrepreneur intention of female students in Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) sector, Sri Lanka. With the introduction of technological subjects into secondary education, there is a huge tendency for tertiary education in the technical stream and involvement of females in technical education also increasing. Thus, there is a need to study the entrepreneurial intention of female students in the TVET sector. The population was the students in seven major disciplines named Mechanical, Construction, Beauty Culture, Tourism and Hospitality, Events and Food Science in government TVET sector educational institutes in Sri Lanka. Simple random sampling method was used and the data was collected using a self administered questionnaire among two hundred students which was the sample. Descriptive statistics were employed on data analysis. The results indicated that personal interest and available career opportunities in the field as the major reasons for the selection of studying area and the majority is willing to continuously occupy in the same. Even though the study revealed that the respondents’ belief as the entrepreneurship is more profitable, as per the findings, the overall entrepreneurial intention is very low and most of the students have an idea to follow higher education or interest to work as an employee in the same field. The findings communicate educators and responsible personalities to make necessary decisions to support employees and students to increase the involvement as entrepreneurs through TVET sector which increase the socio-economic contribution to the economy. Keywords: entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial intention, female students, tertiary vocational education & training