By Charles Ayodele
The National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) has trained selected educators from Nigerian polytechnics and similar institutions on its reviewed entrepreneurship and skills development curricula in Nigeria.
The south-west zonal national entrepreneurship workshop sponsored by Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) was organised by the NBTE in conjunction with Danglo Management and Financial Limited in Ibadan today.
The Executive Secretary, NBTE, Prof. Idris Bugaje, while speaking during the workshop, said the training on the reviewed curricula aimed to make teaching of entrepreneurship be in tune with current economic realities in Nigeria.
The Executive Secretary, who was represented by Mr Garba Isa, a town planners, said that the last review held in 2007 could not address present science, technology and economic challenges in Nigeria.
“Entrepreneurship holds the keys to self reliance and capacity to become an employer of labour. The statistics from National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) shows that 90 per cent of Nigerians are employed by Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMSE).
“This shows the crucial roles that entrepreneurship skills play in changing employment and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) narratives in Nigeria,” he said.
Also speaking, Director, Curriculum Development Department, NBTE, Dr Musa Koko, said the workshop was to call attention of participants to the new approach to entrepreneurship delivery.
He noted that reviewed curricula had addressed the content, pedagogy and practical requirements in terms of skills and trades as well as award and certification of graduands.
“It is important to note that nearly seventeen years of implementation of the Entrepreneurship Development Programme (EDP) project in our institutions has been overdue both in content, approach and delivery.
“The Board has rolled out a decisive policy direction aimed primarily to address TVET position in skills delivery which include the review of all aging curricula in all the programmes and especially the entrepreneurship education.
“The review was necessitated because of the time and need to reinvigorate the spirit of creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship for all TVET Institutions and its graduates,”Koko said.
Commenting, the Lead Consultant to NBTE on the reviewed entrepreneurship curricula, Prof. Audu Dangana, said that the workshop would have been packaged to properly orientate the participants and also develop their skills and that of their students to be self-reliance.
This, he said, would reduce poverty, create more job opportunities, wealth and value reorientation, among citizens.
Over 400 participants were drawn from polytechnics and other similar institutions in the south-west region of the country for the workshop scheduled for Oct. 9 to Oct. 10.
