Entrepreneurship Skills Required by Youths for Effective Participation in Honey Production Occupation in Bayelsa State, Nigeria

The study examined the entrepreneurship skills required by youths for effective participation in the honey production occupation in Bayelsa State, Nigeria. The study adopted the descriptive research design. The population for the study, comprised 150 respondents, comprising 70 male and 80 female students of the agricultural education unit in the Department of Vocational and Technology Education, Faculty of Education, Niger Delta University, Bayelsa State, Nigeria from the four different levels viz: 100, 200, 300 and 400 in the 2018/2019 session. The instrument for data collection was a 54-item structured questionnaire on a 4-point rating scale of Strongly Agree (SA), Agree (A), Disagree (D) and Strongly Disagree (SD) with corresponding numerical values of 4, 3, 2, and 1 respectively. The instrument was face-validated by three experts and the Cronbach alpha reliability method was used which yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.62. The data collected were analyzed using weighted mean score while t-test statistics was used for testing the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The study identified eleven apiculture planning skills, sixteen apiculture management skills, ten preparatory skills for harvesting honey and eleven honey processing skills. There was no significant difference in the mean responses of male and female students of agricultural education on the entrepreneurship skills required by youths for honey production occupation. Based on the findings, the study recommends, among others, that trainers should redouble their efforts to equip learners with entrepreneurship skills in apiculture enterprise. Also, government should intensify campaigns to encourage youths into honey production occupation.