Government institutions, entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurship education programmes in Malaysia

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to examine the status of entrepreneurship education (EE) in Malaysia and entrepreneurship education programmes (EEPs) offered by Malaysian public and private higher education institutions (HEIs), against the backdrop of macro-level context of Malaysian government institutions related to entrepreneurship.

Design/methodology/approach

This study replicates and extends the research by Maritz et al. (2015, 2019). The study expands a nascent archetype regarding an iterative and systematic open-ended emergent enquiry, together with data collection from Malaysian HEIs.

Findings

The findings suggest significant emergence of EE (programmes and research) in Malaysia, despite EEPs being sparsely distributed across HEIs in the bottom half of Table 1. The top ten HEIs (12% of all HEIs in Table 1) accounted for 35% of all EEPs. This study highlights the significant influence of Malaysian government institutions related to entrepreneurship on EE and EEPs.

Research limitations/implications

The findings are subject to the availability and accuracy of information and documents available on official websites of HEIs. This limitation has been mitigated with telephone and email inquiries and other sources of information.

Practical implications

The findings provide critical grounding and inferences on the status of EE and EEPs in Malaysia for researchers, practitioners, HEIs, governments and other stakeholders.

Originality/value

This study is first of its kind on emergent enquiry into the status of EE in Malaysia and EEPs offered by 19 public HEIs and 67 private HEIs in Malaysia. Moreover, this study links macro-level context of the Malaysian government institutions related to entrepreneurship with micro-level context of EE and EEPs.

Citation

Looi, K.H. and Maritz, A. (2021), "Government institutions, entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurship education programmes in Malaysia", Education + Training, Vol. 63 No. 2, pp. 271-291. https://doi.org/10.1108/ET-07-2020-0217