Abstract
Education as an effective and veritable
instrument can be used to bring about redress. It is as well one of the
greatest investments that a nation can make and use for quick development of
its economic, political, sociological and youth empowerment. One of the major
reasons for the clamour of entrepreneurial education in Nigerian schools today
is to re-position our education system in order to make innovation effective in
the market and else-where for youth empowerment.
Entrepreneurial education
studies cannot guarantee youth empowerment in the near future if effective
strategies for teaching it are not observed and followed. This paper discusses
entrepreneurial education system in Nigeria and suggests effective strategies
to be followed if it must contribute to social reengineering and youth
empowerment in Nigeria.
Introduction
The Entrepreneur is a crucial facilitator of in the
process of economic development. It is a term broadly used to denote the
innovative, modern, industrial business leader. Entrepreneurial itself is an
innovation and creativity at the highest level and brings into existence the
hitherto unknown. It further brings about conception of ideas, data collection,
policy formulation, career formation, financing, training and development among
others. It embodies risk-taking on commercial ventures with a view to making
profit in return for the investment (Okeke: 2009).
Entrepreneurial
studies empowers youths with more functional skills and potentials which
prepare them to search for change respond to it, and exploit it as an
opportunity. Such empowered youths should be encouraged to establish
small-scale businesses for self-reliance. They should take advantage of their
developed talents to be originators of profitable business ideas known as
innovation, which Joseph Schumpter (1800) in Ballis and Smith (1984:75) in
Okeke (2009). Identified as the single function that constitute
entrepreneurial. The youths should place more emphasis on the ability to gain
command of and combine resources in a new way that would be profitable. Entrepreneurial
education for youth empowerment is therefore a life-long process that lead to
an informed and involved citizens having the creative problem solving skills,
scientific and social literacy, and commitment to engage in responsible
individual and co-operative actions (Nnabuo, 2009). This type of education
enables people to develop the knowledge, values and skills to participate in
decision about the ways things are done individually and collectively, locally
and globally which will improve the quality of life now without damaging the
planet of the future (Nwankwo, 2009) Entrepreneurial education programme, if
religiously implemented can guarantee youth empowerment in Nigeria. This paper
therefore focuses on the purposes of entrepreneurial education and its relation
to youth empowerment in Nigeria, Entrepreneurial education programme implementation
strategies for social reengineering and youth empowerment are also discussed.
The Purpose of Entrepreneurial Education
The National policy on Education
(NPE, 1970), stated the goals for tertiary education among other things is to
“acquire both physical and intellectual skills which will enable individuals to
be self reliant and useful members of the society, promote and encourage scholarship
…. To achieve these aims and to contribute to national development according to
Okebukola (2001), the universities are required to diversify their programmes
for the development of high level manpower within the context of the needs of
the economy. Entrepreneurial education in Nigeria as in other parts of the
world is to empower the citizen to rise above the boring jobs of the past,
create more jobs of interest for themselves and for productive employment.
UNESCO (2002:9) saw the purpose of entrepreneurial education to include:
1) Educating individuals for, and about
business.
2) Providing
a planned continuous learning experience meant to equip individuals to fill up
effectively three roles:
a) Making
available and distributing goods and services as workers.
b) Making
use of the products themselves as consumers; and
c) Embarking
on wise socio-economic decision as citizens
3) Disseminating
career information to students that relate to their interests, needs and
abilities to occupational opportunities in business.
4) Creating
educational opportunities for students preparing for careers in field other
than business, thereby acquiring business knowledge and skills needed to
function effectively for instance, being able to handle effectively both oral
and written communications, and to develop interpersonal and human relation
skills.
The
objectives and intents of entrepreneurial education as noted above are not
unachievable but laudable. But for them to be achieved, its implementation
programme must be effective. There are many ways of implementing the
entrepreneurial education programme for youth empowerment.
Entrepreneurial Education and Youth
Empowerment
The practical importance of entrepreneurial education
to youth empowerment rests in the attainment of a self-reliant nation. For
instance, one of the goals in the national goals of education in Nigeria is the
building of “a united, strong and self-reliant nation” (Federal Republic of
Nigeria, FRN, 2004:6). The concept of self-reliance anchors on individual and
collective feelings even on the urge for self-preservation through the
independent use of available human and material resources to meet up with
individual and groups needs. Entrepreneurial education should not only create
self reliance in its beneficiaries but should equip them with the necessary
tool to be up and doing as to make the youths become useful members of the
society. Entrepreneurial education is looked upon to provide certain traits on
the beneficiaries which will enable them perform certain tasks on their own
without interferences. Such traits will give the recipient of entrepreneurial
education some level of confidence and independence. The issue now is “what is
entrepreneurial education.
Entrepreneurial Education
The nation’s economy is bleak; unemployment is
everywhere and everyday thousands of graduates are being turned into the labour
market. Nwankwo (2009). The above challenges have culminated in the renewed
interest of the government in self-reliance. The high rate of unemployment
among products of the education system has been attributed to their lack of
skills and competence required in the field of work. The National policy on
Education (NPE 1970) stated the goals for tertiary education among other things
is to “acquire both physical and intellectual skills which will enable
individuals to be self-reliant and useful members of the society, promote and
encourage scholarship .… To achieve these aims and to contribute to national
development according to Okebukola (2001) the universities are required to
diversify their programmes for the development of high level manpower within
the context of the needs of the economy. Entrepreneurial activity is one of the
major areas of vocational education. This area from the look of things have not
received adequate attention and publicity Anioke (2005), The area is often
confused with trade as, a branch of commerce entrepreneurial activities differ
from trade because it is all encompassing more than trading activities.
Entrepreneurial activities involve self-centred activities. It has to do with
owners of small business firms, who have chosen to assume risk, identify
business opportunities, assemble resources, initiate actions, and establish
organization to satisfy market demands. This activities involve coordinating other
factors of production and its accompanying risk or uncertainty, Entrepreneurial
activity engenders a feeling of personal responsibility and accountability for
results. How well managers have performed the entrepreneurial task of
directing, setting and mapping out strategic, development plans can be
appraised from the angle of whether.
These conceptualization can be summed up thus:
1) Identification of important
opportunities
2) Decision
making as to the opportunities to explore, promote and establish the business
enterprises
3) Aggregation
of the scarce resources required to production and distribution
4) Organization
and management of human and material resources for the attainment of the
objectives of the entrepreneur.
5) Risk
bearing
6) Importation
With the above you can see why entrepreneurs behave
differently from others. Entrepreneurship is not only for skill acquisition
sake, but for creating employment for self and others. The word can further
mean persons who undertakes/leads military expedition. In another development
the word entrepreneur is French and literally translated to mean “between –
takers” or “go – between” it can further lead to the development of small,
medium and sometimes large scale businesses based on creativity and innovation.
From this juncture we can now go to look at entrepreneurial education.
Entrepreneurial
education can be looked upon or seen to be a carefully planned process that
eventuates into the acquisition of entrepreneurial competencies. The learner is
equipped with skills on decision making, acquisition of new ideas, ways and
styles of raising and maintaining conversations and establishing relationships
in business. Entrepreneurial education relates to what Adamu (2005) refers to
as the four pillars of education – learning to know; learning to do; learning
to live together and learning to be.
Objectives of Entrepreneurial Education
According to Osuala in Paul (2005:18) entrepreneurial
education has been stated to meet the following specific objectives:
1) To
provide meaningful education for the youths to be self-reliant and encourage
them to derive profit and to be self independence or self employed
2) To
provide graduates with enough training that will make them to be creative and
innovative in identifying new business opportunities.
3) To
provide college graduates with enough training in risk management; to make
uncertainty bearing more possible and easy.
4) To give
the young graduates training and support to establish a career in small and
medium sized businesses.
5) To
provide the graduates with training in skills that will enable them meet the
manpower needs of the society.
6) To
stimulate industrial and economic growth of rural and less developed areas.
7) To
provide business enterprises both small and medium the opportunity of
recruiting graduates who will be trained and tutored in the skills relevant to
the management of small business centre.
8) Entrepreneurial
skills will help unemployment problems among college and tertiary institutions
graduates in Nigeria.
Entrepreneurial
Education in Nigeria
A large scale rapid national survey in 2004 sponsored
by National Universities Commission (NUC) and Education Trust Fund (ETF) to
determine the needs Nigerian graduates are failing to meet in the labour
market. The result show that of 100 individuals and 20 organizations visited, Nigerian
science graduates are rated 44 percent as average in competence, they were also
rated 56 percent as average in leadership skills, 44 percent as average in
creativity. On needed skills like literacy, oral communication, information
technology, entrepreneurial, analytical, problem solving and decision making 60
percent rated them as poor, Nwankwo (2009), the data is seen to explain why
there has been very obvious increase in unemployment rate, one of the reasons
given was that these graduates were unemployable.
The graduates were further seen to exhibit the
following weaknesses according to the NUC/ETF (2004) report:
* Poor control and classroom management
* Low subject knowledge matter
* Lack of computer knowledge skills
* Poor English language communication
skill
* Lack of sense of professionalism
* Lack of self reliance and
entrepreneurial skills
* Poor attitude to work
The
success of entrepreneurial education to any extent depends on a sound and
proper implementation.
Entrepreneurial Education Implementation
Strategies for Youth Empowerment
In
other to guarantee youth empowerment the following strategies should be
religiously observed:
1) Increase in linking or bringing schools
together: Coming together makes learning useful. This coming together shows
how students feel cared for and also how they (students) too care about their
school (Whitlock, 2006). According to Nwankwo et al (2009) students who perceive positive support or caring from
individual adults in their schools or who perceive their teachers and school
administrators as creating a caring, well structured learning environment in
which expectations are high clear and fair are more likely to be connected or
linked to school.
2) Sympathetic learning guidance: Learners
should be sympathetically guided in building their awareness and personalities
within their own experiences. They should be protected from situations they
cannot act intelligently on their own, protected from fears and anxieties.
Should be given sufficient protection for security and status on various levels,
be made to conquer problems and envelop self-reliance. According to Burton
(1958) in Nwankwo (2009) the learners need guidance from teachers and
consultants who know and understand the problems of growing personality; who
see learning as a developmental process. Guidance must be free from domination or
coercion.
3) Observation of differences in learning:
The teacher should be knowledgeable about his class pupil. This became
necessary because learning patterns in students are not uniform and equal.
There are slow and quick learners respectively. Varieties of teaching models
should be adopted to cater for their abilities and interests to suit their
levels of maturity, rates and levels of grasps. The teacher should ensure that
the under listed stages are observed and followed, to suit his teaching
mechanism.
a) Age
of the learner
b) Their
mental, physical, social levels and development
c) Children’s
interest and needs
d) Content
and lesson objectives
4) Transfer of learning in teaching: According
to Nwankwo (2009), he opined that transfer to new tasks will be better if in
learning, the learner can discover relationship for himself and if he has
experience during learning of applying the principles within a variety of
tasks. Teaching should encourage transfer of learning through pointing out the
similarities and differences in ideas and issues, emphasizing on the possibilities
for transfer, proper organization of the lesson, topic or unit, and ensuring
that materials learned in class are seen to be interesting, meaningful and
purposeful by the learners.
5) Cooperative/group learning: A learner
centred approach system where students are grouped in about five with a teacher
assigned to guide is referred to as cooperative learning. Okolodile (2009:3)
had this to say, this kind of learning offers the students opportunity for
effective learning experiences which translate to knowledge explosion and
distribution among students whether gifted or slow learners. Green (2004),
further saw this as a kind of learning characterized by learners’ participation,
academic achievement, social skills acquisition and economic success.
6) Learners Active Participation: Teaching
should provide opportunities to explore, question, construct, provision for mistakes,
freedom to develop creative contributions. It has to encourage active
participation of the learner. Learners should be involved in class activities,
to facilitate learning activities. Children learn more in doing, as an active
process, there should be a good deal of interaction between the teacher and teaching
materials. The age of the learner and developmental levels should be taken into
cognizance to match the situation in learning activities, it goes to make a
learner/child see the relationship between what is done in school and what they
do at home.
Conclusion
In line with the intense, objectives and purposes,
entrepreneurial studies is a giant educational programme of study. Entrepreneurial
studies and skills are very important for youth empowerment and development.
This becomes clear because if the study is religiously observed and implemented
it will make one self-reliant. Successful practice of entrepreneurial studies
requires possession of sufficient abilities, motivation and attitudes which
complement the disposition to take risks. Entrepreneurial studies reinforces
common traits such as a strong desire for independence, a strong will to
succeed and a practical outlook and skill in human relations as veritable
parameters to youth empowerment, as already discussed and documented in this
work.
Recommendations
The current situation whereby people make career
choices without recourse to the manpower needs of the nation has to be
monitored so as to direct the youths to entrepreneurial studies for self
reliance, in further recommendation Nwankwo (2009) added viz:
1) Teachers
should not only care about their students, the teaching environment should be
friendly and encouraging;
2) The
teaching – learning processes should be students’ centred;
3) Teaching
environment should be democratic with the teacher acting as knowledge
facilitator;
4) The
classroom experiences should relate to the learners’ previous experiences so as
to encourage transfer of knowledge; and
5) Teachers
should use different learning experiences so as to benefit all classes of
learners.
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EBONYI STATE COLLEGE OF EDUCATION, IKWO
BEING A PAPER PRESENTED AT THE 2013
ANNUAL NATIONAL CONFERENCE,
AT ENUGU STATE UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
(ESUT)
ENUGU STATE