This study examines entrepreneurship education (EE) as a structured, employability-focused training mechanism in higher education. It aims to empirically test how EE pedagogies develop transferable competencies and enhance graduate work-readiness, addressing the disconnect between EE and employability scholarship.
A sequential explanatory mixed-methods design was employed. The quantitative phase involved a survey of 412 final-year students and recent graduates, with data analyzed via structural equation modelling. The qualitative phase comprised 24 in-depth interviews, analyzed thematically to contextualize the quantitative pathways.
Entrepreneurship education pedagogies (EEP) strongly predict employability competencies (EC) (ß = 0.632), which in turn strongly predict graduate work-readiness (GWR) (ß = 0.683). EC partially mediates the EEP-GWR relationship (ß = 0.432). Qualitative insights reveal that experiential, reflective pedagogies and contextual enablers (e.g. curriculum integration and explicit employability framing) drive this mediated pathway.
The study urges educators to redesign entrepreneurship education beyond venture creation, toward deliberate training environments that simulate workplace uncertainty and integrate structured reflection. Institutions should embed such pedagogies across disciplines, support faculty development in experiential teaching, and strengthen links between entrepreneurship units and career services. Policymakers are encouraged to recognize and measure competency development and work-readiness as core higher education outcomes.
The study bridges a key theoretical gap by empirically validating entrepreneurship education as an employability-focused training mechanism. It provides a robust model and evidence for leveraging entrepreneurial pedagogies to develop work-ready graduates systematically.
