Abstract

The significance of entrepreneurship education in helping university students develop their entrepreneurial skills is becoming more broadly identified. However, there is still less empirical evidence on how it affects the capacity to see opportunities, especially in developing nations like Afghanistan. This study investigates the effect of Entrepreneurship education on opportunity recognition capability among graduating students in Afghan universities. Based on the theories of Human Capital, Social Cognitive, and Opportunity Recognition, the study hypothesized that entrepreneurship education improves students' capability to recognize entrepreneurial opportunities. Data were collected from 389 graduating students for the quantitative study. Descriptive statistics, reliability tests, Pearson correlations, and simple linear regression were used to analyze the collected data. The results show that entrepreneurship education has a statistically significant effect on the respondents' opportunity recognition capability (β = 0.585, p < 0.001). The results make it clear that entrepreneurship education plays an important role in improving students' awareness of entrepreneurship and their ability to recognize viable entrepreneurial opportunities. With its empirical evidence from Afghanistan, which has not been discussed extensively by other researchers, the study makes a contribution to entrepreneurship education. Additionally, the results will yield positive outcomes for educational institutions, teachers, and policymakers interested in entrepreneurship education and in developing entrepreneurial skills among graduates. Further research should investigate other factors influencing the ability to recognize opportunities.

Keywords

Higher education Human Capital Theory (HCT) Opportunity Recognition Capability (ORC) Entrepreneurship Education (EE) Graduating students Afghanistan