Real Estate and Urban Planning Professionalism: The Impact of Entrepreneurship Education on Innate Talent, Self-employment Propensity and Consultancy Practice

Abstract

Throughout the world, the increasing rate of unemployment has brought so many diverse realities, which have compelled governments to evolve realistic mechanisms to drive creativity and ignite self-employment instincts of their citizens,with a view to reducing poverty and increasing general prosperity. Hence, it is our desire to assess the impact of Nigeria’s government novel idea of entrepreneurship education on the innate talents, self-employment propensity and ultimate establishment of consultancy practice among Real Estate and Urban Planning professionals that spurred our interest in this research. The study employs a quantitative approach by administering 425 e-copies of questionnaire among 11 internet-controlled WhatsApp group platforms where well above 70% of practising and consultant Estate Surveyors and Valuers as well as Town Planners are domiciled. A total of 351 e-copies of questionnaire were valid out of a total of 364 e-copies of questionnaire that were returned, translating to approximately 86% distribution-retrieval rate. Amixture of Second-order Smart PLS version 2.0 and AMOS’ SEM version 18.0 statistical tools were used for analyses. The results show amongst other things that all the 5 structural paths that are theorized and hypothesized for all the four variables, which are innate talent, self-employment propensity, entrepreneurship education and consultancy practice are positively significant directionally at 99% confidence level, with cronbach alpha value of 0.975and model estimate 0.995 for self-employment propensity being the variable with the highest interrelationship with entrepreneurship education at p value of 0.016,which resultantly mediates the duo of innate talent and self-employment propensity and thus impacts positively on the establishment of consultancy practice by Estate Surveyors and Valuers and Town Planners in Nigeria. The study concludes that the efficacy of entrepreneurship education stands to continually impact upon both innate talent and self- employment propensity towards an increase in the establishment of more consultancy firms of Estate Surveyors and Valuers and Town Planners in Nigeria. Finally, it is recommended, among other things, that there is an urgent need for consistent review of the entrepreneurship education curriculato increase their elegance, thus making them relevant in addressing self-employment yearnings and reducing poverty.