The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (SMEDAN) began the training of 100 teachers in entrepreneurial skills in Taraba on Wednesday.
The capacity workshop is tagged: “SMEDAN Mind-Shift, a National Schools Entrepreneurship Programme (NYSE) 2021.’’
Declaring the training open, Malam Abubakar Aliyu, an Assistant Director in SMEDAN, said it aimed at building the capacity of primary and secondary school teachers in the 16 local government areas of the state.
Aliyu represented Malam Dikko Radda, Director-General and Chief Executive Officer of SMEDAN at the opening.
He said the workshop also aimed at equipping teachers with requisite knowledge to entrepreneurial skills in pupils and students.
Aliyu said knowledge acquired would engender community service through the formation of competitive entrepreneurship clubs and the establishment of schools enterprises.
He attributed the alarming increase in crime, banditry, and restiveness in the country to increasing rate of unemployment among youths who were not groomed to start and successfully run their private businesses.
“Youths burst with resourceful energies, which if not harnessed early and channelled positively and productively, can become detrimental to self and to society at large,’’ Aliyu said.
In a keynote address, Mr Fred Zaku, Permanent Secretary at Taraba Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education, said there was a paradigm shift in current education system.
He represented the commissioner, Mr Yohanna Jigem, at the occasion.
Zaku said the situation today had gone beyond going to school and getting good grades to acquisition of skills toward self-reliance.
He added that the era of Curriculum Vitae was over and that the current system required the ability to produce bankable business plans that could launch students into being their own bosses.
Zaku stressed that such attainment could only be achieved through functional and adaptive entrepreneurial education. (NAN)
