Women Entrepreneurs and Entrepreneurial skills development

This research empirically evaluates the impact of Entrepreneurial Skills Development Programmes (ESDPs) on Women Entrepreneurs in, with a view to ascertaining the effectiveness of the programmes in promoting entrepreneurial skills acquisition and utilization among women entrepreneurs for achieving the objective of sustainable economic development. The population for the study is made up of two hundred and eighty (280) entrepreneurs comprising of two hundred and fifty nine (259) Private Schools in Kaduna State ¿ Nigeria - that are owned by women and registered with the Ministry of Education under Kaduna State Private Schools Management Board and 21 women poultry farmers that are registered with Kaduna State Poultry Farmers Association. In terms of the impact of ESDPs on the performance of women entrepreneurs, the study reveals that in terms of turnover level, number of employees, market availability and profit before tax, there is a significant difference between the pre and the post ESDPs performance of women entrepreneurs. This study shows that post ESDPs periods were better than the pre period in all the variables tested.