Quadri Yahya
Mustapha Lawal found it easy to choose a skill to acquire during his undergraduate days at one of the public Nigerian universities through the mandatory entrepreneurship education in his school. Back home, Lawal’s dad owns a fishpond, and this spurred him to register for the ‘Fish processing and hatching’ program course in his school entrepreneurship programme.
As part of his personal drive for entrepreneurship, Lawal attended mandatory and other optional courses in entrepreneurship classes and practical sessions with the aim of gaining right skills but as a graduate today seeking a job, he cannot depend on the lessons from these courses to become an entrepreneur.
“The training was just too shallow to bank on with little to work with. They were full of academic theories, most of which have no relevance to today’s workplace reality,” he said. “I didn’t even get a proper grasp of the skill as I thought I would when I was choosing it”. Lawal concluded.
Introduction of Entrepreneur classes into the Nigeria Universities and its purpose
Commonly called EDD among students, the scheme aims to nurture undergraduates across Nigerian higher institutions to become entrepreneurs and job creators. As the level of unemployment continues to be on the increase year in, year out, a new strategy to turn fresh graduates into employers of labour became the goal.
The scheme was founded under the National Board for Technical Education(NBTE) formed in 1977 to provide a standard curriculum for polytechnic and mono-technic whose focus is nurturing skilled graduates after about 4 years of study. NBTE began its campaigns for development of entrepreneurs in the country as against the widespread practice of graduates searching for scarce white-collar jobs.
The Central Bank of Nigeria also initiated a post-scheme called Tertiary Institutions Entrepreneurship Scheme targeted at empowering graduates of Nigerian Polytechnics and Universities with entrepreneurial skills for Entrepreneurship development, Economic development and Job creation.
However, the steep unemployment rate and declining number of small businesses have continued to create a hopeless reality about the nation’s economy, beckoning probe into the accomplishment of the scheme.
A new approach to the study of Nigeria’s unemployment puts the figure at 4.1% — the data is questionable, analysts said, adding that the National Bureau of Statistics data ignores reality.
The report, covering the fourth quarter of 2022, revealed that 5.3 percent of the population, equivalent to 10.6 million Nigerians, were unemployed during that period. The data showed a significant drop by over two million.
A 2022 research conducted by Stutern’s Research, a platform developed to help job seekers and employees navigate the job markets, revealed that 58.9% of Higher National Diploma graduates are unemployed, 49.55% of OND graduates are unemployed and 39.75% of BSc holders are unemployed.
Meanwhile, the Federal Government also stated that lack of skills is one reason Nigerian youth are unable to get a job.
However, instead of more enterprises emerging, no fewer than 7.8 million small businesses under the Association of Small Business Owners of Nigeria have died within the last two years.
Factors attributed to the entrepreneurship courses failure?
Students dread failing the 0–2-unit entrepreneurship course than their main courses. The students said failure to participate in the scheme translates into carry over or an extra year. “If you fail to attend the practical session, you are probably risking failure and re-sit for the course”, said Oluwabukola Akinjobi, a student at The Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro, Ogun State.
The fresh graduate of Mass Communication said the skill acquisition programme is no-joke among students so the attitude of many students registering for entrepreneurship classes is to take the courses and score marks that will help them progress in their studies and not to actually learn skills.
Another student at The Oke-Ogun Polytechnic, Saki (TOPS), Oyo State, Esther Akinola, said: “Entrepreneurship course is a zero unit course but serious students do not want to fail the course as it has the potential of leading to low overall grade point.”
Lawal explained the challenge of the entrepreneurship course at University of Ilorin: “The course is taken in the 1st semester of the 300-level, and there’s always so much hassle with school registration and picking of courses. In most cases, combining this with other departmental courses often lead to not enough time for the entrepreneurship courses”. Often “It is more of a learning to pass and not learning to develop skills”, he added.
A recent twist introduced at the University of Abuja, with the right motive but wrong approach, is the fact that final year students are mandated to register a company with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).. Students must make payment of Eleven thousand naira to the school which will help them complete the registration process.
Saliu Asmau, a student at the Agricultural Economics department, expressed “compulsory registration of company does not really mean anything and may be useless if supposed company owners do not know what to do with the registered company”. For Asmau, “This is nothing but putting extra financial burden on the students”.
A need for change of approach, how to get the best
The approach to the entrepreneurship scheme varies from universities to polytechnics and mono-technics. However, in general, it is common to all the schools that students must undergo theoretical and practical work under the scheme. Unfortunately, these are often done with a lip service attitude. A very serious approach that can work must make a real practical session involving.
For instance, in Moshood Abiola Polytechnic(MAPOLY), Abeokuta, Ogun State, some students render services (e.g. photography, car washing), while some engage in making and selling products (e.g. tie and dye, liquid/bar soaps).
Ridwan Oliyide, an erstwhile student at MAPOLY explained that after the practical, the students are expected to bring some of the products to their supervisors for scoring. Aside from actual product display, students must learn to sell and market the product. With MAPOLY case example, it is mandatory for students to sell the products and services made after the course and share a part of the proceeds with the school
and proceed to pay part of the profits from the products or service rendered into the school coffers.
To get the best, entrepreneurship centres must actively engage with students throughout their stay on campus. Findings revealed that some institutions actually opened entrepreneurship centres where these business activities take place within one or two months. Only a few of these centres push forward to ensure skills learned are put into use before the students leave the school. In few schools where these skills acquisitions had been prioritised, there had been introduction of soft loans for willing students.
Making the programme work will require getting the buy-in of every stakeholder. It also will be good if students are given necessary support while the process of the skills acquisition is fun for the learners.
A recent Polytechnic graduate, Awa’u Adegoke shared her experience, “I just did the entrepreneurship course because it was compulsory and there was no way I could escape it” This Ibadan Polytechnic student chose shoe making but in the process developed passion in addition to crocheting skill she already had before the scheme.
She said: “When I entered poly, it was made compulsory. We registered for a vocation and I thought of what to venture into and made enquiry in the class so I chose shoe making because I thought I can initiate my crocheting skill on it.” Today I am making progress as a shoe maker.
Expert’s view
Dr Rasheed Alao, lecturer in the Department of Economics, University of Abuja affirmed “While bridging the gap in entrepreneurship knowledge deficit about business creation and management is at the backbone of skill acquisition centres across higher institutions, lack of strong commitment to push real structure into the implementation as well as absence of compliance monitoring had made the scheme ineffective”.
Dr Alao
Dr Alao said effective monitoring of the process as well as equipping many of the entrepreneurship centres in the school to offer useful support to students will be essential. While still undergoing their studies in the schools, entrepreneurship centres must also lead in championing full implementation of running businesses where students can be tutored or go through internship/apprenticeship of a sort. Just being a centre with theoretical knowledge may not add much value.
*Quadri yahya, a campus journalist, sent this in as part of requirement for Africa Foundation for Young Media Professionals’ campus journalism fellowship 2023