Philosophically, entrepreneurship education entails self-reliance such as creating a new cultural and productive environment, promoting new sets of attitudes and culture for the attainment of future challenges. It is the type of education which has the ability to impact on the growth and development of an enterprise through technical and vocational training. Entrepreneurship education prepares youths to be responsible and entering individuals who become entrepreneurial thinkers by exposing them to real life learning experiences where they will be required to think, take risks, manage circumstances and incidentally learn from the outcome. Young people can build confidence in their abilities to become entrepreneurs and be empowered in their future as a result of varieties of entrepreneurial activities provided through education.
As a matter of fact, entrepreneurship education will enable people, especially youths to be creative and innovative in identifying great business opportunities. Also, it will empower them and make them self-reliant people in their own right. Entrepreneurship education will provide the young graduates with enough training skills and support that will enable them to establish a career in small and medium size business and this will serve as catalyst for economic growth and development in the country. Meanwhile, it will create job and employment opportunities for the people, which will reduce the high rate of poverty, insecurity and violence in the country.
Although entrepreneurship education has received a boost as a source of job creation, empowerment for the unemployed and the underemployed in a globalized economy worldwide, some factors hinder it in Nigeria. Some of those factors are:
✓ Lack of fund.
✓ Lack of entrepreneurial teachers, materials and equipment.
✓ Non-inclusion of entrepreneurship practical programme in the school curriculum.
✓ Poor societal attitude to technical and vocational education development.
✓ Insensitivity of government to enterprise creation and expansion strategy.
Also, there is problem with Nigerian educational sector which is the too much emphasis on the value on certificate rather than the skills required in the career. In other words, the individual struggle hard through any means to attain the golden fleece which is the certificate rather than the knowledge and skills which should make them self-reliant. Hence, it is hope and rightly too, that in the first place government should encourage a diversification of the economy through adequate support for private establishment and practical acquisition of skills in higher institutions. For this, education should be refined with a view to create and enhance the supply and entrepreneurship in the youth initiatives and activities.
Unfortunately, the government has done little to reduce the misery and frustration of its citizenry. This has fostered hopelessness in the majority of young people who have resorted to any means including crime to succeed in life. Meanwhile, the youths are expected not to involve in crime but to channel their energy towards the development of our dear country. The wheel of development of any country lies on the shoulder of how productive and creative the youths are. This is why parents, teachers and government have the obligation to ensure that the youths are empowered.
All in all, the current industrial decay and the subsequent unemployment crisis among the Nigerian graduates have been traced to the theory-oriented university programmes and certificate frenzy. The economic situation of Nigeria needs re-engineering in order to strategically reposition Nigeria as the true leader of Africa. The development of entrepreneurship education will go a long way in creating employment as it will give young people the opportunity to develop their enterprising skills. This will empower the young ones to be job creators and not job seekers through the provision of necessary skills and knowledge to raise their output, income and wealth. I strongly recommend curriculum review, sensitization, advocacy and mobilization of support for entrepreneurship education, programme focus and funding together with the political will and stability of the government in order to achieve the goals and the policy thrusts of the Federal Government of Nigeria.
Bamah Amaka
ED/18B/2954
CEO, Theris Enterprise.
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