SMEDAN trains 100 Yobe teachers on entrepreneurship education

The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (SMEDAN) has begun a three-day capacity building training for 100 entrepreneurship teachers in Damaturu, Yobe.

SMEDAN Director-General, Mr Olawale Fasanya, stated this at the inauguration of the training exercise on Tuesday in Damaturu.

The exercise is being implemented under the agency’s Mind Shift Entrepreneurship Programme-National School Entrepreneurship Programme (N-SEP).

He said the participants drawn from basic and post basic schools were being trained with the expectation that they would step down what they learn to their students and pupils at the end of the exercise.

Represented by Dr Yinka Fisher, Fasanya noted that the training was pertinent and timely, considering the dearth of white collar jobs in the country.

“The concept is designed to inculcate into the students the intelligent and intellectual consciousness of his/her environment to enable him/her maximise his/her existence and potential.

“Today’s education should therefore be predicated on the philosophy of creating jobs, i.e. turning the students from being job seekers to job creators.

“It is no more go to school, get good grades and get a good job.

“It is how to go to school, get good grades and acquire skills of being your own boss – starting your own business,” he said.

He said the programme, which commenced in 2017 had so far been implemented in 34 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), adding that the remaining states would benefit from the programme before the end of 2022.

Fasanya said the agency would also introduce school entrepreneurship competition for secondary schools in the country in 2023.

In his remarks, Alhaji Yakubu Sani, Director, Entrepreneurship, Business and Sustainability, state Ministry of Wealth Creation, Empowerment and Employment Generation, thanked SMEDAN for the gesture.

He said unemployment, especially among the youths has been identified as the major causes of insurgency and other violent crimes.

Sani said the state was ready to take ownership of the programme, adding that the ministry had concluded arrangements to provide soft loans to women and youth entrepreneurs.