The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (SMEDAN) in Collaboration with the Taraba State Government has organized a 3-day capacity-building workshop for one hundred Teachers in Taraba State.
The workshop which took place at the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT), Secretariat in Jalingo, was under the SMEDAN Mind Shift- National Schools Entrepreneurship Program (NYSE) 2021.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, the Director-General and Chief Executive Officer of SMEDAN, Malam Dikko Umaru Radda, Ph.D. said the program is aimed at building the capacity of primary and secondary school teachers across the sixteen local government areas of the state.
He said it is also to equip teachers with the requisite needed knowledge they need to inculcate in their pupils and students the passion for entrepreneurship development and community service, through the formation of competitive entrepreneurship clubs and the establishment of school enterprises.
Radda, who was represented by the Assistant Director in the organization, Mr. Abubakar Aliyu attributed the alarming increase in crime, banditry, and restiveness in the country to the increasing rate of unemployment of the youths, due to a lack of preparedness to start and successfully run their businesses.
“Youths burst with resourceful energies, which if not harnessed early and channeled positively and productively, can become detrimental to self and the society at large” SMEDAN DG, Radda warned.
In a keynote address, Taraba State Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education, Mr. Yohanna Jigem who was represented by the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Fred Zaku informed that there is a paradigm shift in today’s education, saying that it is no longer “Go to school, get a good grade and acquire skills towards being thier own bosses”.
According to the Commissioner, the era of curriculum vitae is over; explaining that we are in the era of crafting a bankable business plan that will launch the students into being their bosses, which he said can only be achieved through functional and adaptive entrepreneurship education.