Entrepreneurship education, panacea for Nigeria’s sustainable development
Across the world, small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) have contributed in accelerating the economic development of their host economies. Such feats are obvious in the economies of Asian Tigers such Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and India who have contributed tremendously to the Gross Domestic Products (GDP) through various productive activities as a result of entrepreneurial ingenuity.
The World Bank and other multinational development agencies have for long put into cognisance the benefits of targeted assistance to SMEs in stimulating the growth, promoting economic development and reducing poverty in their interventions in developing countries, including Nigeria. Success stories of SMEs across the globe confirm the views of economic experts that result-oriented entrepreneurship is the backbone of and yardstick for measuring a booming economy.
A glaring example of entrepreneurial spirit is that mastered by Mark Zuckerberg, a young university graduate of Harvard in 2004. With his invention of Facebook, one of the largest social networks, this platform with over 750 million active users (and growing) from all over the world, several organisations and SMEs have tapped into its usefulness for brand awareness, customer engagement, drive web traffic, generate business leads, viral marketing, etc.
According to American Express, 35 percent of entrepreneurs advertise on Facebook to promote their business to new customers and made $US 800million in 2009. Census Bureau’s 2002 survey of business owners shows that self-employed individuals operate three to four percent of US businesses. Entrepreneurs drive America’s economy accounting for the majority of the nation’s new job creations and innovations.
Zuckerberg’s experience, borne out of thinking outside the box, leaves much to be desired looking for white-collar job than developing one’s potentials.
The Nigerian government in its bid to propagate entrepreneurship programmes officially launched the YouWin Project in 2011. The programme, a youth empowerment and entrepreneurship project anchored by the Federal Ministry of Finance in conjunction with the Federal Ministry of Communication and Technology, the Federal Ministry of Youth Development, the World Bank, and the organised private sector.
According to Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, minister for finance and coordinating minister of the economy, the project was aimed at generating jobs through supporting aspiring entrepreneurial Nigerian youths to develop and execute business ideas that will lead to job creation.
Among other things, the program will provide aspiring youths with a platform to showcase their business acumen, skills and aspirations to business leaders, investors and mentors in Nigeria.
“At the end, the target was to have 3,600 entrepreneurs supported through the finance options of the project to start or expand their business concepts. It is expected that over three years; an additional 1,800/2,000 businesses must have started or have been expanded by youths trained by the program; 40,000 to 50,000 sustainable new jobs for currently unemployed Nigerian youths over three years; at least 6,000 aspiring youth entrepreneurs trained in business planning and management and at least 3,600 entrepreneurs linked with mentors in the business community,” Okonjo-Iweala said.
With job creation, skill acquisition, and poverty reduction being the fruits of entrepreneurship, Aba, one of the commercial cities in the country has an abundance of young, talented men and women who utilise their creative skills to earn a living.
In an interview with BusinessDay, Mossy Emejiaka, a shirt designer in Aba, said “I have nothing less than 10 trainees and we get enough quotations from prominent boutiques in Lagos and Calabar. We supply them 100 packed shirts in a week worth N100,000. As the demand grows, I truly need more hands.”
Omengbojia Ogbonna, one of the beneficiaries of FG’s entrepreneurship programme said, “Though I am physically challenged, I was determined to attend the three-day entrepreneurship programme held in my school. The first day of the workshop we were mentored on the concepts of entrepreneurship, while the other two days we learnt how to make perfumes, soap of good scents, good decorations and a host of other things.”
Ogbonna focuses on making perfumes which he sells to his course mates. Now a graduate, he is into the perfume business on a full-time basis.
Okoro Joseph, a lecturer in the department of Mass Communication in one of the federal institutions said, “The country has strong and viable graduates who have potentials and business ideas that could transform them to becoming great entrepreneurs but most people are afraid of taking risks.
“Imagine what the country would have been if entrepreneurship programmes were not being launched, which is an avenue for university graduates; and undergraduates are been mentored too. If the presidency in 2006 had not given instructions to the higher institutions in the country to embrace entrepreneurship as a prerequisite, perhaps it means that most graduates who have been opportune may have been roaming the streets in search of white collar jobs. This entrepreneurship programmes give the needed information to upcoming entrepreneurs.”
A cursory look at entrepreneurship in Nigeria shows that while some Nigerian graduates have all it takes to become successful entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs are faced with the problem of how to generate compelling business ideas for new entrepreneurial businesses.
The entrepreneur who lacks the initial ingredient of success which includes the entrepreneurial mindset of bringing about a change, creating an invention or how to beat the competition, soon goes under when faced with endless competition from existing businesses.
With some entrepreneurs may have read some books and magazines on entrepreneurship, the issues of how to generate business ideas and evaluate them, how to identify target market, locate the business, market the business and its product/services, identify the gap in the market (which the entrepreneur desires to fill), etc, are addressed through some trainings/seminars.
Many existing Nigerian entrepreneurs are self-employment-oriented. Their business is naturally small with ‘do-it-yourself’ mentality. This mindset of ‘why have someone else do it when you can do it better yourself?’ makes them solo performers, the business becomes all-consuming, and soon they are burned out and the business does not outlive them. Most artisans in Nigeria are self-employed and semi-literate.
Augustine Isimoya, a university don with University of Lagos (UNILAG) said that Nigeria today needs young graduates that have an entrepreneurial bent to float businesses based on their specific knowledge of time and place. By their knowledge, Isimoya noted that they are able not only to generate viable business ideas, but would also address customers’ concerns satisfactorily, when guided.
“For instance, graduates of Agriculture should be able to come up with business ideas to float entrepreneurial businesses that would create jobs in animal husbandry and dairying, fisheries, horticulture and allied sectors – if properly trained in process of entrepreneurship. Also, graduates of Finance and Accounting should be able to generate ideas for entrepreneurial ventures that would solve multiple financial problems, such as reliable and integrated credit information database. In the same vein, professions like medicine, engineering, architecture, insurance, pharmacy, etc, are all yearning for knowledgeable entrepreneurs to exploit the business opportunities,” Isimoya stated.
Evidently, Nigeria is lagging behind in preparing her workforce for the challenges of the rapidly changing global economy. The development of entrepreneurship will go a long way in providing the necessary impetus for economic growth and development. It will be crucial in boosting productivity, increasing competition and innovation, creating employment and prosperity and revitalising the economy. It is concluded that improved and sustainable global economic development depends on a strong entrepreneurship education.
Analysts believe that government and other education stakeholders should make sure that educational programmes at all levels of education are made relevant to provide the youths and graduates with needed entrepreneurial skills and the government should give adequate attention to entrepreneurship development in the country through the provision of conducive economic environment to encourage individuals to participate in business.
GODFREY JUSTICE