Bridging Entrepreneurial Knowledge and Skill Gaps Through Educational Programmes for Disabled Students
摘要
The number of entrepreneurs around the world is increasing rapidly, accentuating the ability of people with differing capabilities to come up with innovative ideas in the business domain. While most people with disabilities prefer to be self-employed rather than being contracted employees, empirical research reveals that they are not qualified enough to start their own business due to insufficient knowledge and skills in entrepreneurship. Overcoming this challenge would require determining the main criteria of designing entrepreneurial education programs, identifying the type of technical skills needed by disabled students, and integrating entrepreneurial skills in curriculum to assist disabled students to acquire the entrepreneurial knowledge and skills necessary for entrepreneurs. The empirical part and analysis are based on the outcome of two focus group discussions with 46 students and a structured survey questionnaire of 73 students with physical, hearing, and visual disabilities from various universities in Oman between October 2023 and May 2024. Our findings reveal that disabled students have a strong desire to become business owners, but many of them do not have sufficient knowledge and skills to establish and operate a business, hence underlining the urgency to respond to differing types of disabilities by designing tailored entrepreneurial programs for disabled students and integrating suitable entrepreneurial culture and technical skills in existing programs to narrow the knowledge and technology gaps with non-disabled students.