Business
THE Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (SMEDAN) has organised a 3-day Train-the -Trainer programme, for 100 Primary and Secondary School Entrepreneurship teachers in Kano, Mr Dikko Radda, the Director-General of the Agency has said.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the programme on Monday in Kano, Radda added that the programme was designed to enhance the capacity of Entrepreneurship teachers, under the ‘Mind Shift – National Schools Entrepreneurship Programme,(MSEP)’ 2021.
He said the training was organised to build the capacity of primary and secondary school teachers and providing them with the requisite knowledge they need to inculcate in their pupils and students a passion for entrepreneurship development and community service.
According to him, the programme involved sensitisation , training and converting pupils and students to entrepreneurs from child hood.
” Entrepreneurship teachers must be entrepreneurs, as they cannot give what they don’t have.
“The alarming increase in crime, banditry and restiveness in the country can easily be attributed to the increasing rate of unemployment of the youths, due to lack of preparedness to start and successfully run their own businesses.
“This is because there is so much anxiety and uncertainty among Nigerian students about their future, because of the dearth of opportunities in the employment market and lack of entrepreneurial skills to go into new business ventures.
“The World Bank recently predicted that there will be additional injection of 40 million people joining the economically active group by 2040 in Sub-Saharan Africa.
“So, the imperative is that young people must be supported with education and training that promotes employment generation and wealth creation,” he stated.
Radda added that at the end of the training, all participating schools would be expected to create entrepreneurship clubs and school enterprises, to compete at the National School Entrepreneurship Competition and Awards ceremony, to showcase their innovative business skills.
The SMEDAN helmsman disclosed that more than 300 primary and secondary schools in 15 states had been engaged and have benefitted from the programme since 2018, and had improved the entrepreneurship capacities of 600 teachers and 300 mentors.
“This year, the programme will take place in 12 states of the federation, with 100 teachers and education officers per state,” he said.
Radda then appealed to the participants to take advantage of the programme to prepare and equip themselves as entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship educators.
Earlier, the Commissioner for Education, Alhaji Sanusi Kiru, commended SMEDAN for programme, saying that he had directed all Principals and Directors of Secondary Schools in the state, to establish orchards in their schools and approved the establishment of entrepreneurship clubs in all secondary schools of the state.
He also expressed the readiness of the ministry of Education to continue to support important programmes of this nature, while urging the participants to be good ambassadors of the State, as well as endeavour to share the knowledge they had acquired with others.
Ali Sadik, a participant, thanked SMEDAN and the state ministry for education for the programme and promised to share the knowledge with others.
NAN
-12, 2021 @ 18:15 GMT |
Tags: SMEDAN trains 100 Kano entrepreneurship teachers –DG
