TITLE:
Effect of Entrepreneurship Education on Business Start-Up among University Graduates: Evidence from St. Augustine University of Tanzania
AUTHORS:
Afisa Swalehe, Sylvester Jotta, Paul M. Gwaltu
KEYWORDS:
Entrepreneurship Education, Practical Business Skills, Experiential Learning, Institutional Support Mechanisms, Business Start-Up
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.14 No.10,
October
15,
2026
ABSTRACT: The effect of entrepreneurship education on business start-up among the graduates of St. Augustine University of Tanzania, Mwanza Campus was the focus of this study. In particular, the study examined the impact of the practical business skills, exposure to experiential learning and institutional support mechanisms on graduates’ business start-up. The study used the Entrepreneurial Event Theory and a positivist research philosophy and quantitative cross sectional research design. The target population were SAUT graduates of 2024 and 2025 who were living in Mwanza City. The sample size obtained from Cochran’s formula for an unknown population was 384 respondents, which was obtained by multistage sampling. Structured questionnaires were used to collect data, and 350 questionnaires were returned and were usable, which was 91.1 per cent of the questionnaires. The overall Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the questionnaire was 0.823, which is considered satisfactory. The data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation analysis and multiple linear regression in IBM SPSS Statistics Version 26. The findings revealed that practical business skills was rated high with a mean score of 3.60 and was found to have a positive and statistically significant influence on business start-up (β = 0.321, p p ≤ 0.001). The institutional support mechanisms were rated low (2.47), and was the strongest predictor of business start-up (β = 0.366, p