Title: Exploring education driven entrepreneurship in engineering graduates in India

Authors: Dinesh Khanduja, Prabhakar Kaushik

Addresses: Mechanical Engineering Department, National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra 136119, Haryana, India. ' Mechanical Engineering Department, National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra 136119, Haryana, India

Abstract: Engineering education has an indomitable role in entrepreneurship development. Since entrepreneurship is a dynamic process of vision, change and creation – education provides energy and passion towards creation and implementation of new ideas on a continual basis. In India, engineering institutions have mostly played a passive role, resulting in many myths and fears among students on entrepreneurship. Survey reports amply indicate the abundant existence of entrepreneurial aptitude among students, but ironically entrepreneurial capability is lacking among them on account of poor inputs on entrepreneurship. The article dwells on, trends in engineering graduates towards wage employment/self-employment as career option; the prevalent myths and fears on entrepreneurship; inhibitors to sustainable growth of entrepreneurship. Taking a holistic approach of |Entrepreneurship Development| as the key objective, a case study is cited to propose a strategic model for engineering institutions to evaluate performance in fostering entrepreneurship among engineering students in India.

Keywords: entrepreneurial aptitude; entrepreneurial capability; entrepreneurial inclination; entrepreneurship; technopreneurship; engineering graduates; engineering education; India.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCEELL.2009.025032

International Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Life-Long Learning, 2009 Vol.19 No.2/3, pp.256 - 270

Published online: 10 May 2009 *

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