Navigating Upskilling and Employment Capability of Studentpreneurs for Local Economic Development in an Innovation-Focused University

The paper explores the importance of entrepreneurial upskilling and employment capability of studentpreneurs for local economic development at the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), Nigeria. The paper highlights policy inputs into entrepreneurship education with a view to ameliorating employment generation for wealth and economic prosperity in Nigeria. The paper adopts a quantitative, cross-sectional approach on a sample size of 130 studentpreneurs. The outcome reveals that more than 70% of the studentpreneurs claim to achieve entrepreneurial upskilling through their personal initiatives. The study reveals that entrepreneurial upskilling significantly (χ2=186.352, p≤0.05) influences employment capability of the FUTA studentpreneurs. The paper concludes that entrepreneurial upskilling for employment capability is germane for fashioning opportunity mindsets that can translate to national development of next-generation entrepreneurs in Nigeria.