Education is the pillar upon which human civilization is erected; it is the ultimate tool for survival and I am certain that without education, humanity will cease to exist. Through education, we have developed the polio vaccine, the antibiotics, the submarine, the GSM, the electricity and every invention that has helped us over the years to interact better, work better and even when necessary, to war better.
Owing to this therefore, it is very important to periodically review the direction of our Educational system, for if civilization and human advancement is driven by education, we can tell where a nation is headed by simply observing the educational system.
The challenges staring us in the face in Africa today, the leading ones being unemployment and poverty, makes it very inevitable to consider an urgent reform in the educational sector. The challenges did not just spring up without a basis, it is simply as a result of a lacuna in our academic curriculum.
Several years ago when the academic curriculum we use today was imbibed, the narrative was to go to school, get good grades to get good jobs. The good old days were called good old days because during those days there were more jobs than graduates. Very many of you will agree with me that a graduate has sometimes three to four job offers to choose from. Today, the reality is exponentially inverse. A singular job right now has thousands of graduates competing for it. We must immediately review our academic curriculum and fill the vacuum that has produced the challenges we have today.
The proposed solution, which in reality is the ONLY solution is the introduction of Entrepreneurship Education into the academic curriculum. We must at this point now begin to task our children to think creatively and innovatively. To train them to embrace challenges and take risks. Our education at this point must include how students can translate their acquired knowledge and innate skills into value which society can pay for. Through Entrepreneurship Education, students will learn entrepreneurial attributes such as self-reliance, positive self-image, power of vision, focus, determination, resilience and many more. It is with these virtues that they can graduate and ask not what the country can do for them but what they can do for the country.
It is no longer a news that Nigeria has an alarming rate of poverty. The usual complaint is that government has failed the citizens. A lot of fire brigade interventions have been employed to combat the problem of poverty. Unfortunately, those interventions have not recorded appreciable success because they are in most cases haphazard.
Entrepreneurship is one of the major interventions that the leading countries have employed to boost their economies and combat poverty. Kids and Teenprenuership program is a social enterprise project that is aimed at catalyzing young minds towards entrepreneurship preparing them for the future.
Kids and Teenprenuership engages, trains and equips primary and secondary school students on the basic knowledge about entrepreneurship, financial management and market development. Kids and Teenprenuership catalyses kids and Teenagers towards idea generation, solution analysis. Innovations and idea pitching. This program also extends to school teachers because they play a huge role in passing the right message across to the students.
School teachers need to be trained and equipped on basic knowledge about entrepreneurship, as this will help them in passing through right message across to the students.
There are entrepreneurship books for different levels which have been published for both formal and informal classroom settings. One of the major impacts of this entrepreneurship program to students is that, it will help broaden their thinking capacity and also build a sense of community awareness in a child. The child sees him/herself as an entrepreneur that is solving problems.
Education has always been the foundation upon which the sub-structure called development stands. Every of the phases of human development thus far have their links to the type of education required to drive them.
In other words, the great revolutions that have shaped the earth couldn’t have been without knowledge. Education, albeit learning, instruction and training have been the driving factor of every of these stages of development – the first Industrial Revolution was characterized by steam and water. The second Industrial Revolution was the introduction of electricity to mass produce things. The third is characterized by the internet, communication technologies, and the digitalization of everything. The fourth Industrial Revolution is the concept of blurring the real world with the technological world.
The indisputable reality is that the economy and growth of nations is linked with the ability of – not its leaders but its youth to plunge into, acquire adapt and utilize the technologies that accompany each wave. But it is needful to note that as important as the scientists, the technologists, innovators and inventors are in the emergence of each of the industrial waves, the development that ensued at it stage wouldn’t have been possible without the real propagators. They are called ENTREPRENEURS!
All over the world, there is an awakening to the reality of a direct connect between prosperous nations and entrepreneurship. The reality is that the nations that are described as developed and have become prosperous today all have some common characteristics. They have vibrant entrepreneurial base through their youth population who are burning with imagination, passion, energy, creativity and intelligence.
There is no way the scientific feats, technological innovations and inventions could have become known if they did not leave the laboratories or work stations. The success of every invention is influenced by the impact of commercialization through entrepreneurship as had on it.
Entrepreneurship development is therefore a vital need for every country that is committed to economic growth and development. In the course of commercialization and creating markets, sources of livelihood emerge in their thousands, thus entrepreneurship is notably the most sustainable source of job creation in the developed world, leaving the underdeveloped African nations to keep grappling with government provision of jobs even in the midst of ever dwindling resources.
To sustainably contribute to tackling the menace of poverty and under development in Africa, it is imperative to initiate a systemic reorientation, change mind sets and educational paradigms – grow and groom the current emergent generation to become entrepreneurs – change makers who appreciate making self-sustenance and wealth creation their first choice in employment consideration.
The entrepreneurial transformation of developed societies begins from the imprint that the society, parents, teachers and spiritual worship centres deliberately make in the heart of the children and the teens before they grow into youths and adults. Entrepreneurship in practice – entrepreneurial thinking and activities, as well as transformation of skills and abilities to wealth can therefore be introduced from early primary and running through early teen age. The watchword is “Entrepreneurship: Better Quite Early”.
Any society systematically flows and changes after its life value systems. This means no matter how we try, poverty and unemployment will remain with Africa unless they are dealt with from the roots – changing the people’s values and perspectives by introducing entrepreneurship and cognitive/entrepreneurial skills to the children from the impressionable ages.
The Kid & Teen-preneurship Programme is focused on engaging kids and teens (from primary to SS3) in a learning process rooted in experiential methodology where they acquire basic skills in financial intelligence, business and interactive abilities and an opportunity to practically explore entrepreneurship.
The project advocates the infusion of entrepreneurship studies into the curricula of Primary and Secondary education with a view to build in Africa, the base structure upon which scientific, technological exploits, the creative ingenuity and entrepreneurial feats that are the hallmark of prosperous societies are erected.
Realizing the objectives will require inculcating in the kids and teens interpersonal skills, self-reliance financial discipline, encouraging team projects, solo and joint presentations, pitching, marketing, ideas generation, creativity, innovation and Social responsibility. These are achieved through formal, informal learning, special events, website based digital learning. The programme will be scaled depending on the age-range of the class.
Hitherto, African nations’ approach to entrepreneurship has been the “fire brigade” response; introducing entrepreneurship to the youth in the heat of their desperate hunt for employment. Whereas, entrepreneurship is the natural first choice of a child in the developed world haven been introduced to creative thinking, problem solving and risk bearing from childhood. The main thrust of 21st Century Education is to advance and enhance the entrepreneurial and leadership capacity of the student as early as possible through the process of starting and running a business or social movement. This is what ACCENT has introduced to the academic curriculum of African schools.
In school, the person who makes few mistakes wins.
In real life, the person who makes the most mistakes . . . Robert Kiyosaki
Comments
