GASPRO International Journal of Eminent Scholars

The study aim to analyze the acquisition of marketing and business plan skills as the panacea for job creation potentials of undergraduates in south-south federal universities, Nigeria. This study adopted ex-post-facto research design method. This study covers six federal Universities located in the South-South Geo-Political Zone. The population of this study comprises of final year undergraduate students offering entrepreneurial studies from University of Port Harcourt, University of Uyo, University of Calabar, Federal University of Petroleum Resources Effurun, Federal University of Otuoke and University of Benin. The six federal Universities have a total of 18,910 entrepreneurial undergraduate students during the 2017/2018 academic session. Simple random sampling technique was used in this study to select 3 out of 6 Federal Universities in the South-South zone, while stratified sampling technique was used to select 4 faculties from the three selected Federal Universities in the South-South zone. This study used two research questionnaires to collect data from the respondents. A sample size of 580 entrepreneurial undergraduate students from the three Universities were considered in the study. A breakdown shows that University of Calabar contributed 220 respondents, University of Uyo 171 respondents and University of Port Harcourt 189 respondents.  They were titled ‘Undergraduate Students’ Entrepreneurship Skills Acquisition Questionnaire (USESAQ) and Job Creation Potentials Questionnaire (JCPQ) was designed by the researcher. A copy of the questionnaires including the research questions were presented to ensure the items are relevant and clear in both content and arrangement and ensure also that the instruments are specific, concise and clear to the point by removing irrelevant information and modifications were made on the relevant items . The result shows reliability coefficients ranging from.70 to .92. The study revealed that there is significant relationship between acquisition of marketing skills and job creation potentials of undergraduates. It also revealed that acquisition of acceptable business plan skills has significant relationship with job creation potentials of undergraduates. The study concludes that by integrating these skills into university curricula, institutions not only enhance the employability of graduates but also cultivate a generation of entrepreneurs capable of creating job opportunities and driving innovation.one of the recommendation provided was that south-South federal universities in Nigeria should incorporate comprehensive marketing and business planning courses into their core curricula to empower students with practical, job-creating skills.

Keyword: Acquisition, Marketing, Business Plan Skills, Job Creation, Potentials Undergraduates, South-South Federal Universities and Nigeria.