ENTREPRENEURSHIP AS A MAJOR PART OF THE UNIVERSITY STRATEGY: AN ATTEMPT AT DIVERSIFICATION

Abstract

There seems little doubt that financial pressures in future will increase, as funding body grants reduce, tuition fee income becomes less stable and the demands to pay for new and better facilities continue to grow. And then there's the pension fund liabilities. diversifying income streams beyond the well understood core university activities of teaching students and winning research grants is still relatively new territory for many institutions; and it's clearly important to gain a good understanding of potential customers. This paper discusses the possibilities that an entrepreneurial university can offer to its various stakeholders as opposed to the traditional university that relies on funding from the state and other volunteers. The study employed the qualitative method methodology, where the quantitative methods were nested in the qualitative methodology. It adopted constructivism as its philosophy and multi-case study as its design. The findings of the study revealed that most participants felt that the State should wholly fund university education because of its strategic importance to the country. However, the reality on the ground proves that the state has no capacity to fund all universities. Thus, the study recommends that universities should be more entrepreneurial so as to complement whatever the state offers.