The Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) was created to address the country’s economic challenges and lay the foundation for economic diversification, former Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Prof. Stephen Ocheni, has said.
Speaking at the Annual National Conference and Home-Coming of the Institute of Education, University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), he said it was also designed to promote inclusiveness and sustainable growth. He said Nigeria could be a leading global economy by exploring opportunities in entrepreneurship, adding that over-dependence on oil for foreign exchange earnings remains a challenge for the country.
Ocheni, who is a Professor of Public Sector Accounting, spoke on the theme: “Entrepreneurship education for sustainable national development”.
He lamented that the economy had been import-dependent, un-diversified adding that the conference was meant to address the next step toward economic recovery.
He said entrepreneurship education is one of the strategies for achieving sustainable economic development.
“Economists have maintained that the major obstacle to economic growth of poor nations is lack of educated entrepreneurs who are able to mobilise and coordinate production input. Challenges of entrepreneurs in Nigeria are limited or inadequate financial resources for expansion, lack of managerial expertise, irregular power supply, lack of unity and mutual trust among Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and poor quality of products,” he said.
He also mentioned complete absence of books of accounts, engagement of unskilled and cheap labour and inadequate infrastructure leading to very high production/operational costs among others.
Ocheni said African countries have not fully developed strategies to tap the economic resource of entrepreneurship.
Ocheni received an Award of Excellence on Academic and Human Development as a Distinguished Alumnus of the university, having graduated with a doctorate in Financial Management from the UNN.
He advised the Federal Government to consider the establishment of an Entrepreneurship University focusing mainly on research and development as well as literacy training of entrepreneurs.
“The introduction of a Bachelor’s Degree programme in Entrepreneurship Development should be made mandatory for all universities. Equally, the curricula of existing polytechnics should be restructured to promote entrepreneurship education and the production of skilled manpower in line with their traditional roles.
“Potential entrepreneurs among students can be found in all disciplines and not limited to the economics or business students alone. Since these talents can be found in all disciplines, it becomes imperative that appropriate curricula should be developed to accommodate all,’’ Ocheni said.
He explained that the National Universities Commission (NUC) should as a matter of policy enforce the teaching of basic entrepreneurial courses in all universities as a compulsory course.
He said in the areas of instructional facilities and qualified lecturers/technicians/instructors, universities were advised to collaborate with the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), which had sufficient manpower in vocational training.
“The National Universities Commission should specifically develop appropriate benchmarks for assessing the standard of entrepreneurial education programmes offered in Nigerian universities. The National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) should do same for polytechnics and technical colleges with equipped technical laboratories,’’ he said.
Ocheni noted that to improve the economy, President Muhammadu Buhari decided to introduce the Economic Recovery Growth Plan (ERGP) to address three major areas-‘to accelerate growth, investment in human development and building a globally competitive economy.
He talked about the National Social Investment programme of Buhari’s administration, which he described as the largest and most ambitious sound investment programme in the country.
Ocheni noted that the components of the programme are: Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (HGSFP), Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT), Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP), MarketMoni, FarmerMoni and TraderMoni.
He recalled that, according to last year’s scorecard of President Buhari, over 500,000 young graduates were beneficiaries (employed) under the N-Power scheme which he described as the largest of graduate employment scheme in Africa.
The former minister commended President Buhari for demonstrating the political will to reduce unemployment rate among the youth through job creation and skills acquisition training of the National Directorate of Employment, Social Investment programme and other government policies.
To promote entrepreneurship, Ocheni recommended that friendly bank interest rates should be applied on loans to entrepreneurs.
He suggested that entrepreneurs should be encouraged to open business bank accounts distinct from personal/family accounts, a simple condition for advancing loan to an applicant which many could not satisfy.
Director of the Institute of Education, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Prof. Kay Onyechi, said the conference was a fulfillment of the statutory vision of the founding fathers and mandate of the institute to provide world-class education.
She said the conference was also a testimony that the institute is rising to the socio-economic challenges facing the nation.
She said entrepreneurship would create room for youth employment and sustainable economic development.
UNN Vice-Chancellor Prof. Charles Igwe said he was happy that the director of the Institute of Education is propelling the institute to higher heights.
He commended Ocheni and others for contributing significantly to the success of the annual conference.
Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) Executive Secretary Prof. Ismail Junaidu noted that countries tha invested in entrepreneurial education tend to demonstrate a higher regime of sound economic and technological development.
“It was recommended that for us to tap into the opportunities available in the entrepreneurship, we must inculcate the elements of entrepreneurship into teachers’ education programmes to enable the teachers deliver lessons capable of unleashing the creative ingenuities in the learners and make our youths the hub for our development and progress,’’ Junaidu said.
Leave a Reply