Unemployment Tsunami May Hit Nigeria – Kadpoly Acting Rector
The Acting Rector of Kaduna Polytechnic, Dr. Catherine E. Uloko, has warned that Nigeria in the next five years will have Tsunami of unemployed youths which will lead to increase in crime rate in the country unless the government takes a study of entrepreneurship education to the lower standard of educational ladder.
She stated this while speaking to journalists at an Engineering Conference organized by the College of Engineering of the Institution in Kaduna yesterday.
Dr. Uloko added that it is the unemployed youths that are kidnapping; they are the armed robbers and substance abusers of today. And in order to correct it the entrepreneurial skill must start from the scratch and that is the primary school level.
“In Kenya they teach entrepreneurship education in primary schools, in secondary schools and then take it to the tertiary level. So that by the time you reach the tertiary school level nobody will tell you to go and create a job.
“Because we’re in the time of recession there is need to indoctrinate students to have an entrepreneurial mindset. If you don’t begin to make students imbibe that entrepreneurial mindset at the end of the day what we’re talking about today will be just like a child’s play compared to what will happen in the next five years when you have a Tsunami of unemployed youths.
“I think that government should take entrepreneurship education to the lower level right to the primary schools because if you finish primary six and drop out you can now do a business. If you drop out from secondary school you can do a business and become an entrepreneur,” she said.
In his remark, the Dean, Faculty of Engineering, University of Jos, Nigeria, Professor Stephen J. Mallo, who defined Entrepreneurship as the process of designing, launching and running a new business, which typically begins as a small business, such as a startup company, offering a product, process or service for sale or hire; said the national policy on education has undergone some reviews as well as the curriculum to encourage more entrepreneurship.
Professor Mallo said the introduction of Entrepreneurial studies in Nigerian Tertiary institutions is barely one decade having started in the 2007/2008 academic session.
“We must admit that even though the impact may not be very visible, for now the awareness of the need for graduating students to think out-of-the-box to take advantages of opportunities for self actualization in the midst of dwindling employment opportunities in government organizations.
The host of the conference, Director of College of Engineering, Kaduna Polytechnic, Dr. Mohammed Kabir Abdullahi said the theme: Entrepreneurship in Engineering Technology: The Concept of Learn To Do was chosen to ginger up students to learn to develop skills that will enable them to be entrepreneurs even when they’re still in the school. He added that the Institution is creating an enabling environment for the realization of such goal.
