Idea of establishing a university is to develop human skills capable of solving various problems in the society.
Such skills are expected to be developed from different courses and disciplines. University, which is often called gown, presents a great opportunity to earn money as well as a degree when appropriate techniques are employed in imparting the needed knowledge on the students.
Having discovered that government and private businesses cannot provide white collar jobs sought after by 1.8 million graduates in Nigeria yearly, the federal government in 2006 set up entrepreneurship studies, and made it compulsory for students of higher institutions irrespective of area of specialization.
Since entrepreneurship became compulsory course in most of the country’s institutions, what has been its contributions in churning out entrepreneurs from the universities? Despite being enshrined in the university’s curriculum, a number of graduates are still seeking employment in various establishments.
It has been discovered that some of the lecturers who teach the course do not have entrepreneurial skills sufficient enough to equip the students for the challenges ahead. No doubt that a great number of them have proven teaching skills –imparting knowledge in line with best global practices, but there is still a need to move from traditional way of teaching.
They need to be more innovative in crafting industrial-related course’s plan that would produce successful business owners beyond the campuses. Information about marketable ideas should be prioritized and acquired by the students in their preparation into entrepreneurship rather than job-seeking world.
In advanced countries such as United Kingdom and United States of America, where entrepreneurship is also compulsory for students, emphasis is more on teaching the students on how to address lifetime goals and personalized such for creating successful businesses.
This is not only important to these countries in their quest towards rolling out successful entrepreneurs from their universities, having access to resources on campus is also crucial.
Strategically, the countries ensure that student start-ups have access to physical office space and a means to accelerate their ideas on campus. Nigeria has a lot to learn from these countries considering the number of graduates coming out from our universities every year as against the number of available jobs both in the public and private sectors.
Government at all levels also need to double their efforts towards entrepreneurship development through government, university and professional advisory partnership.
