1. Introduction

Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in the world even though there are some improvements today in the basic aspects of the population. Around 31 million people live below the specified poverty line of 45 US cents per day and the country's human development index are still remains at a very low level compared with the rest of the world (Ethiopian ministry of education, 2008). Some million people live with the risks of starvation each year. The economic structure of the country is predominately an agrarian economic structure and it consists of 85% of the population and from this population around 90% of them live in poor and starvation phenomena.

Along with the economic system, people in Ethiopia jeopardize because of inadequate knowledge, skills, attitudes, and as a result majority of the population affected by the unemployment problem (Antonios, 2006). Around 35 million people have low skill levels and only 10% of the urban population has post-secondary high school educational status (ibid).

Because of these reasons around 75% of the workforce concentrated in low-skill employment sectors like commerce, services, and elementary occupations. Besides, less than 50% of the urban workforce engaged in wage employment and more than 40% are self-employed in the informal economy.

According to the Economist (January 6, 2011), the country had the 5th fastest growing economy in the world during the periods 2001-2010 at an average annual GDP growth rate of 8.4% and the annual GDP growth reached 8.1% during the periods 2011-2015. Despite such improvements, unemployment is one of the socio-economic problems in the country.

This showed that the economy cannot provide adequate jobs to the growing population in both rural and urban areas. Basically, because of the agrarian economic structure and poor education quality, the government of Ethiopia takes the lion share by employing the majority of graduate students who are completed their study from public and private universities and colleges.

Besides, academic institutions (Universities and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges) are not making adequate knowledge in line with the country's economic needs when students attending their education. As result, unemployment and under unemployment extensively found in Ethiopia. Unemployment is explained as a situation whereby people who are willing to work but unable to find a job (Ogwumike, 2001).

More acceptably, ILO claims that the unemployed is a member of the economically active population who is without work but it is available for and seeking for work (ILO, 2004). Actually, unemployment and under unemployment are not the only problem of Ethiopia and it is the burning problem for the world even though it is severed in most developing countries like Nigeria, India, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Sir Lanka, and others. For instance, 75 million Nigerians were unemployed and from this, it was estimated that about 40 million were youths (Vanguard, 2010). In the Ethiopian context around 50% of the population aged between 15-30 years are unemployed (Eshetu and Mammo, 2009). In the urban areas, about 26% of the workforce is officially unemployed and from this number, youth are significantly higher than the rest of the workforce (Ethiopian ministry of education, 2008).

In the world from the total population which is found in the labor market, 47% were youth unemployed (International Labor Organization (ILO), 2004). The trend of youth unemployment also increased to 78.8% in the world (Eroke, 2012). Similarly, according to Lam, Leibbranat & Miatsheni’s (2008) proposed that 550 million youth are not able to generate 1$ per day.

To mitigate such challenges, providing quality and adequate entrepreneurship education is preferable because it helps young people (who are graduates from universities and colleges) to make jobs and eradicate poverty by themselves (Sekenu, 2004). Due to this reason, entrepreneurship has gained much attention from politicians and researchers. Unlike other studies in the area of the entrepreneurial intentions of TVET graduate students, this article targets to show the future of employment expansion in Ethiopia for TVET students is with the private sector and the public sector can no more be the biggest employer. Thus, enhancing private sector productivity (both formal and informal) and creating mechanisms for strengthening their linkages and complementarities through entrepreneurship is critical to creating honest and remunerative jobs for TVET students.

2. Statement of the Problem

Despite entrepreneurship education has been given so far in various universities and colleges in Ethiopia, most of them craft graduate students who are ready for salaried work rather than making jobs (Kourilsky & Walstad, 2007). In a knowledge-driven country, job seekers should possess relevant job competencies, cultures, businesses, and intellectual levels. Like other academic institutions, TVET education has an effect on the life of students through providing basic skills and specific knowledge for lifelong learning, provide hands-on learning opportunities and self-employment and to commerce them in the industry (Kirchberger, 2008).

In addition to that, TVET is an instrument for providing skills and experiences to students, facilitate the mastery of both non-vocational and vocational skills, provide hands-on learning opportunities that are closely related to everyday life needs of students and serve as an alternative for potential school leavers. More than this, as McNeil (1996) argued that TVET education is indispensable for a nation because it serves the national interest through conserving and developing resources, promote agricultural productivity, preventing the waste of human labor and finally, it facilitates TVET trainees understand about various issues related to society, technology, work, environment, and their own future career development.

Researchers argued that entrepreneurship involves the study of why, when, and how only some people can discover, evaluate, utilize, and exploit business opportunities (Baron & Henry, 2006). Although entrepreneurship encourages self-employment for entrepreneurs, the intention of graduates from University, TVET, and other academic institutions to start a business from the scratch is challenging for most Ethiopian youths. Many researchers interested to investigate the intention of university students and they have given less attention to study the entrepreneurial intentions of TVET students in Ethiopia in general and specifically in the Gurage zone. However, this study aimed to fill this gap by studying at the TVET level because those students who are attending TVET colleges can change their practical skills into entrepreneurialism. The idea of generating practical skills from Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) than other academic institutions were supported by Dike (2009) and he further claimed that TVET institutions are the key to country development.

Besides to the entrepreneurship curriculum, other studies proved that individuals traits such as being active, flexible, able to adapt to a learning environment, and able to see change as an opportunity influences intention to entrepreneurship (Chou, 2010 & Shartrand, et al., 2008). Moreover, as Gebremedhn & Raju (2106) argued that potential entrepreneurs are influenced to start their own business by their family members, business media, business people, academics, and attending on entrepreneurship courses, personality, and environmental factors. Priyanto (2008) also claimed that entrepreneurship influenced by both internal and external factors. An internal factor includes personal characteristics, attitude, interest, and ability, which provide an individual with the power of entrepreneurship. Whereas, factors like family, business environment, the physical environment, and social economy considered as an external one. Practically, in Ethiopia, TVET graduate students challenged by personality traits, lacks finance, skills, government assistance, intentions, and fear of futures (Issayas, 2005).

One of the new things in this article which did not address by other scholars was why students learn more than one degree at a time. From the side of the students at the TVET level, instead of struggling to make personal jobs, university and college students learn more than one degree at a time to struggle educated but unemployed challenges. Therefore, this study tried to address and answer the reason why TVET students learn other degrees parallel with their normal education in the TVET program and the result of this question would be considered as the theoretical contribution of this study.

Lastly, so far, there has been little discussion about the influencing factors of TVET graduate students' intention towards entrepreneurship generally in Ethiopia and specifically in Gurage Zone TVET graduates, and this study was tried to fill this gap.

3. Objectives of the Study

The general objective of this study was to investigate determinants of Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) graduate students' intentions towards entrepreneurship in the Gurage Zone. And, specifically, it had four research questions.

√ What are the determinants of TVET graduate students’ intentions towards entrepreneurship?

√ How the internal and external factors influence TVET graduate students’ intentions towards entrepreneurship?

√ How entrepreneurship education impacts students to start businesses immediately after graduation?

√ What is the entrepreneurial intention level for TVET graduates?

4. Literature Review

During the 1994 Ethiopia has a total of 13 governmental and 10 non-governmental technical and vocational schools and they enrolled totally 4561 students. The number of students and TVET schools increased to 25, 000 students and those students enrolled in 126 governmental and 40 non-governmental TVET training institutions at the end of 2002. According to the report of the Ministry of education, in 2004/5 the country has 108 governmental and 91 non-governmental TVET schools with a total of 106,336 students enrolled in different training fields (MoE, 2002a & MoE, 2005).

The Ethiopian government has designed many plans to enhance development and poverty reduction. Among them, Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty (PASDEP), the Industrial Development Strategy, and National TVET Strategies are a few of them. The objective of the National TVET Strategy is to create a competent, motivated, adaptable, and innovative workforce that contribute to reducing poverty, social and economic development through facilitating demand-driven, high quality technical and vocational education and training that is relevant to all people, all sectors of the economy, and at all levels.

Despite the fact that the primary goal of any TVET schools is crafting the right skills to meet labor market demands, Ethiopian schools faced a greater challenge on matching the skills, knowledge, trainees lack of attitudes towards self- employment after completion and absences of demand for TVET graduates in the labor market and industries (Gebremedhn & Raju, 2106). Most of the graduate students need government assistant through subsidies and long term loans.

Additionally, the national TVET strategy has clearly documented the gap between the technical and vocational training and the actual job creation of the graduates and to overcome this problem the strategy aims to enhance a micro and small enterprise sector and supporting start-up business by providing training for technology transfer (National TVET strategy, 2012).

Moreover, the national TVET strategy document indicates that TVET operates as an interface of different sectors including the education sector, labor market, industry, MSE sectors, agriculture and rural development, and public administration which demands the involvement of a wide stakeholder group for the contribution of expertise, experiences, capacities in order to improve the relevance and effectiveness of the TVET system.

In this study the importance of TVET institutions looked into three big categories. Primarily, TVET education helps to tackle the high rate of unemployment, joblessness, and difficulty of getting jobs in the labor market by providing training to youth (Maigida, Saba, & Namkere, 2013).

Besides, Technical Vocational Education and Trainings (TVET) are relevant in equipping young people with technical skills that would enable them to engage in productive lively hoods. Lastly, TVET is assumed as a continuous training or retraining program that is given in the context of institutions and works places that help to prepare graduates for work through the development of occupational skills ( Olaitan, 1998 & Abubakar, 2010). Entrepreneurship education has been added to the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) curriculum to develop and enhance the core competencies of TVET students to start a business following their graduation.

Investigations argued that individuals with high entrepreneurial qualities will be active, flexible, able to adapt to a learning environment, and able to see change as an opportunity (Chou & friends, 2010; Shartrand, Weilerstein, Besterfield-Sacre, & Olds, 2008). TVET enables reduce unemployment in society by making graduate students be able to use technology products and develop better entrepreneurial skills to become more innovative workers (Oranu, 1991; Olaitan, 1992). As a result, national development could found because of the eradication of poverty and the engagement of youth in the workplace (Johansson and Adams, 2004).

Entrepreneurship has gained much attention from politicians and researchers' perspective. Researchers argued that entrepreneurship involves the study of why, when, and how only some people can discover, evaluate, utilize, and exploit business opportunities (Baron & Henry, 2006). The aim of entrepreneurship is to change the mind and behavior of students to form new businesses and job opportunities. According to Bird (1988 & 1992) entrepreneurial intention is the willingness of an individual to perform entrepreneurial behavior. The intention is the cognitive state immediately prior to executing a behavior (Krueger, 2005). An entrepreneurial intention is concerned with the inclination of a person to start an entrepreneurial activity in the future (Davidson, 1995). Here below, the identified variables of the study reviewed. These are entrepreneurship education, entrepreneurial attitude, entrepreneurial motivation, subjective norms, internal locus of control, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and perceived behavioral control.

Entrepreneurship education is a vital instrument to enhance employment rate, economic growth, and innovation (World Bank, 2008 & Giacomin et al., 2011). Higher formal entrepreneurship educations are more likely to pursue entrepreneurial opportunities by providing adequate entrepreneurship know-how on management, business, and accountancy and administration knowledge and as a result entrepreneurship educations make a difference among entrepreneurs ( Lee, et al., 2005; Arenius and Minniti, 2005; Turke & Sulcek, 2009 & Pruett, et. al., 2009).

According to Aslam et al., (2012) and Galloway & Brown (2002), revealed that students who participated in the entrepreneurship course have more intentions towards entrepreneurship and new venture creation than other students. As Wu and Wu (2008) confirms that student who follows entrepreneurship education indeed show a greater intention to start-up.

Also, entrepreneurship education is a series of activities that helps to assimilate and develop knowledge, skills, and values to enlarge their enterprise's success from the initial stage to maturity (Garavan, Costine, and Hegarty, 1995). Moreover, entrepreneurship education has a positive impact on the production of graduate entrepreneurs, whereby many graduates began to open their own businesses, which ultimately grew into strong companies (Matlay, 2008; Upton et al., 1995 & Solomon et al., 2002). To the contrary, according to Zhengxia Peng, Genshu Lu, Hui Kang (2012) entrepreneurial education has significantly and negatively impacted student’s entrepreneurial intentions.

According to Norfadhilah and Halimah (2010), 80% of respondents have positive attitudes towards entrepreneurship, even though only 58.8% of them, on the whole, are interested in becoming entrepreneurs. Attitude is a key variable that impacts one’s determination, and an attitude will drive a person to behave accordingly (Norfadhilah & Halimah, 2010). The study showed that attitude is an important factor in influencing student entrepreneurial intentions. Most respondents expected that their positive attitudes towards entrepreneurship could be maintained until they started their business in the future.

The attitude towards becoming an entrepreneur, subjective norms, social valuation of entrepreneurship, knowledge of entrepreneurial role models and entrepreneurial support has a significant influence on entrepreneurial motivation and entrepreneurial motivation has a significant correlation with entrepreneurial intention (Malebana, 2014).

Azjen (1975) explains subjective norm as “perceived social pressure to engage or not to engage in behavior”. Subjective norm and the social norm has been used interchangeably (Engle at el., 2010) and is social pressure from the opinions of individuals’ parents, friends, partners, or other important roles.

Subjective norms and intention towards entrepreneurship had a positive and statistically significantly related (Zhengxia Peng, Genshu Lu, Hui Kang, 2012 & Engle et al., 2010). As our parents and friends approved to start a business following our graduation we are going to create a new venture (Aslam et al., 2012).

Additionally, Kruger (1993) that individual’s entrepreneurial intentions are also impacted by their subjective a norm which is influenced by perceived expectation level from those who are important to him or her like relatives, parents, friends, colleagues and so forth to their certain behaviors and individual’s obedience to these expectations. However, subjective norms had a weak influence on intentions (Autio et al., 2001).

Individuals who have an internal locus of control have a tendency to perform entrepreneurially activity Göksel & Aydintan (2011). According to Ayodele (2013) & Cromie (2000) internal locus of control had a significant effect on entrepreneurial intention.

Self-efficacy encourages prospective entrepreneurs to start their business. As the level of entrepreneurial self-efficacy increase, the interest to be engaged in entrepreneurship increase (Nursito, & Nugroho, 2013). Self-efficacy helps to develop an entrepreneurial interest in the mind of the students (Hermawan, Soetjipto, & Rahayu, 2016; Hmielski, & Corbett, 2006). Self-efficacy influences not only the formation of an individual’s entrepreneurial intentions but also the possibility of creating a firm in the future (Boyd & Vozikis, 1994).

Perceived behavioral control and intention towards entrepreneurship had a positive and statistically significant. Meaning as the more we increase the degree of control to develop new business, the intention to be involved in entrepreneurship also increases (Aslam et al., 2012).

5. Methodology

The study carried out in the Gurage Zone. The Zone found in the Southern Nation Nationalities and People of Ethiopia. According to the statistical agency census of Ethiopia since 2007 reported that the zone has 1,279,646 populations with an area of 5,893.40 square kilometers. Geographically, the study area located 8°10’56.7732” N and 38°3’47.3256” E.

The study was an explanatory research design and it helps to determine the influence of independent variable/s on dependent variable/s. The Zone has ten TVET schools namely Wolkite poly technique college, Butajira TVET school, Agena TVET school, Gunchera TVET school, Arekit TVET school, Endibir TVET school, Hawariyat TVET school, Mehalianiba TVET school, Buhi TVET school and Marko (Kushi) TVET school. From those schools, three schools (Wolkite poly technique college, Butajira and Agena TVET schools were selected by using a simple random sampling technique. The study included only students from level-3 up to level-5 because they have taken an entrepreneurship course. The total population of the study was 695 and from this population, the sample size of the study determined using Yemane (1967) formula. Therefore, the study used 254 respondents based on the sample proportion for the questionnaire survey.

N= total population of the study

n= sample size

e= error

Source: (Yamane, 1967)

6. Results

a. Descriptive analysis

To measure the entrepreneurial intentions of TVET graduate students in Gurage Zone a five point Likert scale has been used. The respondents respond that their level of agreement as 1 for strongly disagree, 2 for disagree, 3 for neutral, 4 for agree and 5 for strongly agree.

Table 1.1. Determinants of entrepreneurial intentions of TVET graduates’ towards entrepreneurship

The results obtained from the descriptive analysis (mean and standard deviation) of factors influencing entrepreneurial intentions are shown in the above table 1. Therefore, entrepreneurial education has entrepreneurial attitude has entrepreneurial motivation has perceived behavioral control has locus of control has entrepreneurial self-efficacy has subjective norms has and entrepreneurial intention

Entrepreneurial intention has the highest mean followed by entrepreneurial motivation, entrepreneurial education, entrepreneurial attitude, subjective norms, and locus of control, entrepreneurial self-efficacy and perceived behavioral control.

Table 1.2. Pearson correlation analysis

Dependent variable: EI (Entrepreneurial intentions),

Independent variables: EE (Entrepreneurial education), EA (Entrepreneurial attitude), EM (Entrepreneurial motivation), PBC (Perceived behavioral control), LC (Locus of control), ESE (Entrepreneurial self efficacy), SN (Subjective norms).

The above table 1. 2 provides the correlationship among the dependent variable and independent variables using the pearson correlation analysis.

The analysis reveals that entrepreneurial self efficacy has a significant positive correlation with entrepreneurial intentions followed by subjective norms , entrepreneurial motivation , perceived behavioral control , entrepreneurial attitude , entrepreneurial education and locus of control . This shows that all independent variable have a positive and significant relationship with entrepreneurial intentions.

b. Regression analysis

This study conducted a multiple regression analysis to examine the effects of independent variables on dependent variable.

It can be seen from the table 1.3 below, the values of R² shows that, 61.4% of changes of entrepreneurial intentions explained by the seven independent variables and the remaining 38.6% of the changes of the dependent variable entrepreneurial intentions explained by variables which were not included in the model. The second diagnosis analysis is to test whether the entire model is significant or not.

Table 1.3. Model summary

The null Hypothesis H₀ fittest of the model states that all regression coefficients are equal to zero, which means none of the independent variables, plays any role. The alternative hypothesis H₁, states that at least one coefficient is different from zero. To perform this test, the researcher carried out an analysis of variance (ANOVA) test.

As we have seen in the above F-statistic ANOVA test, table 3, F= (7,90) =20.721, P<0.01, which revealed that the model was statistically significant at 1% and it depicts that explanatory variables explained the dependent variable of entrepreneurial intentions. Therefore, the null hypothesis H₀ of the fittest model rejected. The final test of diagnosis analysis is the test of the significances of each independent variable.

As the table below, 1.4 shows that, except entrepreneurial education, all variables are statistically insignificant at 5% significance level. Therefore, only the null hypothesis of entrepreneurial education is rejected.

Table 1.4. The coefficients of explanatory variables

7. Discussion

The study aims to investigate determinants of TVET graduate students' intentions towards entrepreneurship in Gurage Zone, Ethiopia. The descriptive analysis result shows that respondents found on the range of agreeing and it means that all variables influence graduate students' intention towards entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial intentions had had the highest mean score followed entrepreneurial motivation, entrepreneurial education, entrepreneurial attitude, subjective norms, and locus of control, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and perceived behavioral control. This implies that as the TVET students would have a strong entrepreneurial motivation then their intention towards entrepreneurship will be increase. The same is true for the remaining variables.

All variables (entrepreneurial education, motivation, attitude, self-efficacy, subjective norms, locus of control and perceived behavioral control have a positive relationship with entrepreneurial intentions. Relatively self-efficacy has greater correlations with entrepreneurial intentions followed by subjective norms, entrepreneurial motivation, perceived behavioral control, entrepreneurial attitude, and entrepreneurial education and locus of control. This infers that as the level of influence increase positively or negatively on TVET students than their entrepreneurial intentions would be goes directly the sign of the changes.

Besides, except for entrepreneurship education, other variables like motivation, attitude, self-efficacy, subjective norms, locus of control, and perceived behavioral control has a positive statistically insignificant effect on entrepreneurial intentions at a 5% significant level. However, entrepreneurship education has a positive and statistically significant effect on entrepreneurial intentions. This shows that TVET graduates in the context of the Gurage Zone influenced by entrepreneurship education only. The other variables were not determined students inclined to business after their study completion. Therefore, only the null hypothesis of entrepreneurship education was rejected.

The entrepreneurial education results of this study support the findings of Matlay (2008), Upton et al., (1995) & Solomon et al. (2002) which stated that entrepreneurship education has a positive impact on the production of graduate entrepreneurs, whereby many graduates began to open their own businesses, which ultimately grew into strong companies.

Whereas, it contradicts with the result of Zhengxia Peng, Genshu Lu, Hui Kang (2012) and they proposed that entrepreneurial education has a significantly negative impact on a student’s entrepreneurial intentions.

An entrepreneurial attitude is a key variable that impacts one’s determination and an attitude will drive a person to behave accordingly (Norfadhilah & Halimah, 2010). In this study TVET graduates have a positive attitude towards entrepreneurship but it is statistically insignificant. According to Malebana (2014) subjective norms, social valuation of entrepreneurship, knowledge of entrepreneurial role models and entrepreneurial support have a significant influence on entrepreneurial motivation and entrepreneurial motivation has a significant correlation with entrepreneurial intention. But in this study, subjective norms and entrepreneurial motivation had a positive statistically insignificant effect on entrepreneurial intentions.

The locus of control for TVET graduates have an insignificant effect on entrepreneurial intentions. This result contradicts with the findings of Ayodele (2013) & Cromie (2000) which was proposed that internal locus of control had a significant effect on entrepreneurial intention.

Self-efficacy encourages prospective entrepreneurs to start their business. As the level of entrepreneurial self-efficacy increase, the interest to be engaged in entrepreneurship increase (Nursito, & Nugroho, 2013). However, the result of self-efficacy in this study depicts that it had a positive and statistically insignificant effect on TVET graduates' intentions towards entrepreneurship.

According to Aslam et al. (2012) perceived behavioral control and intention towards entrepreneurship had a positive and statistically significant. Despite this, the findings of this study on perceived behavioral control shows that it has a positive and statistically insignificant effect on entrepreneurial intentions.

8. Conclusions

This study aims to identify and investigate TVET graduate students. Based on the literature review, it is found that students could be influenced by many factors among them; personal characteristics, attitude, interest, and ability, and factors like family, friends, business environments, government policies, pandemics, inflation, and others are group as external influencers. For this the study, seven variables were taken for investigation purpose; entrepreneurial attitude, motivation, self-efficacy, behavioral control, locus of control, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and subjective norms. Hence, the results of the study limited to only the above variables.

In the Zone, TVET graduate students have a high entrepreneurial motivation to start their own business following after the completion of their studies. In the very nature, the community by itself compares to other Ethiopia people they have more entrepreneurial mindsets. Keeping this natural and entrepreneurial culture as a gift when they more supported by curriculum-based entrepreneurial education their interest and dreaming to be an entrepreneurial person tendency has been increased.

Based on the responses and the descriptive statistical results, TVET graduate students agreed on the influences of subjective norms, locus of control, entrepreneurial self –efficacy, and perceived behavioral control to incline into businesses following their graduation. In addition, for those mentioned variables have a positive relationship with the dependent variable entrepreneurial intention. However, except for entrepreneurial education, other variables had a positive and statistically insignificant effect on entrepreneurial intentions.

Practically the community supports their children to join the business during their childhood. Even their families give priority to business than education. There is no respect in the community when students educated and work as a government employees and rather it is appreciated when a student starts any business that can make money per day. As TVET students’ part of that community (Gurage communities) they are influenced and acted like what the community behaves. Therefore, the study variables have a direct and positive relationship with intention.

The course entrepreneurship influence students until the point of changing their mindsets and as a result, they understood that by attending the course they identified business opportunities in the market, develop/write/ business plan, know where they can get the sources of finance and how to do marketing research. Despite this implication of the course, most of the TVET students who have rich families they learn another degree to increase their probability of getting jobs in the market than focusing on only the TVET education. This infers that even though the TVET students take an entrepreneurial course inclining to the real business is a challenge. The basic reasons for fear of starting a personal business are because of limited finance, lack of practical business experience, high tax system, market linkage gap, and limited location for business. Also, the attitude of the community is another obstacle because they expect that the graduate students will work as government employees but in reality, students are forced to create jobs by themselves. During this time those graduates asked themselves for the reason to attend colleges. This infers that students learn to get jobs rather than to make jobs. This view deeply found in the community mind and students cannot able to break such attitudinal challenges.

9. Recommendations

In this section the paper recommended at four levels; government, community, individual and institutional levels. The target of the government is crafting self-employed TVET students following their graduation time. However, a number of challenges hinder students to start their own business. To break such problems, the government should design practical entrepreneurship education, creating a link with model entrepreneurs, arranging university industry linkages in the form of apprenticeship, providing business locations, opening marketing accesses and opportunities, amending tax policies for start ups, contacting graduates with microfinance, banks, and insurance institutions with limited collateral requirements.

At the community level, in order to change the attitude and mindset, embarking community-based entrepreneurship for sustainable development is another means. Besides, establishing private and public business incubation centers should be mandatory to strength new TVET graduate students’ business capability in the market.

At institutional level, it is also expected from the TVET institutions to amend and nurture entrepreneurship curriculum to make it more of practical, design collaboration with universities, Ethiopian Entrepreneurship Development Center, Financial institutions to get funds, resources, manpower or entrepreneurial trainers, arrange seminars, workshops, and training.

Moreover, at individual level students should also focus and target to be an entrepreneur rather than just waiting for the hands of the government to be employed. Meaning TVET graduate students should be dedicating their time, energy, and money to their long term success rather than for refreshment and enjoyment. Parents, families, friends, and financial institutions also should design a policy of inclusion for entrepreneurship flourishment.

10. Contributions and Limitations

The study contributes to the government, TVET graduates, students’ families, Gurage Zone entrepreneurship office, and the nation at large by identifying variables that determine TVET students’ intention towards entrepreneurship. Hence, the above-mentioned stakeholders consider using the variables to have a positive contribution to enlarge entrepreneurship at family, TVET College, Zonal and country level.

This paper has an empirical and theoretical contribution to TVET graduate students' entrepreneurial intention. Based on the literature reviews in the previous studies on the variables namely; entrepreneurship education, motivation, locus of control, perceived behavior, subjective norms, attitudes and self-efficacy have an effect on entrepreneurial intentions and the same results are found also in this paper and this showed that the further and universal empirical contribution in the context of Ethiopia. In addition to that, in reality, the students’ entrepreneurial intentions also influenced by financial availabilities, governments attention towards businesses, inflation, pandemic and economic status of the countries, students stress management experiences and skills, political stability in the nation, religious, sex, age, and families income experience towards business affect students future intention to entrepreneurialism and this considered as a theoretical implication of the paper.

Above and beyond, students’ spent their young ages by attending two-three degrees in their life and then trying to make money is hard for them. Because they devoted almost over 75% of their ages and after that returning to business is another challenge. Therefore, the long time investment in education has a negative impact on succeeding in business. Even though the study has the above contributions, it is conducted in the Southern Nation and Nationalities of Ethiopia in Gurage Zone TVET schools. Therefore, the study limited to be generalized to all TVET institutions in the country. The investigation also a cross-sectional study and to use the analysis results of the study, the longitudinal investigation should have to be carried out. Besides, the study used only a questionnaire survey as a data collection instrument. So that for the purpose of data triangulation, other methods of data collection tools should be implemented. Moreover, the study limited to a few variables and therefore, other demographic factors and should be included professional experiences.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank you Wolkite University for its’ financial support as a research grant.