By Steve Agbota
The Deutsche Gesellschaft Internationale Zusammenarbit (GIZ) said it has entered a partnership with the Lagos State Ministry of Education to drive entrepreneurial literacy among secondary school students.
The GIZ, under its Pro-Poor Growth and Promotion of Employment in Nigeria (SEDIN) programme, piloted the Students Entrepreneurship Activity Hub (SEA-Hub) in the state to prepare students for now and after school life to curb youth unemployment.
The Entrepreneurship/Job Creation Advisor, GIZ-SEDIN, Mr. Babafemi Oyediran, said the project rationale was to equip students with basic entrepreneurial skills for wealth creation and to cut by half unemployment rate in the country.
Oyediran spoke at the launch of the SEA-Hub in the Lagos State Education District 1, comprising Agege, Ifako/Ijaiye and Alimosho schools. He noted that entrepreneurship and skills had in the past been targeted at adults.
“We are working in partnership with the Lagos State Ministry of Education’s STEAM UP project to pilot the SEA-Hub, one of the SEDIN-GIZ components and entrepreneurship and economic engagement for micro, small and medium enterptises.
“In the SEA-Hub approach, we decided to step it lower to the secondary school level of our entrepreneurship engagement and economic empowerment, which is part of our mandate.
“We have been doing that since 2016 when we piloted in Niger State and now in four different states and at the federal level; we have 10 states. This is our pilot in Lagos, District 1 (Alimosho, Agege and Ifako/Ijaiye). We have three students and two teachers from each school and we have six schools represented in the Agege phase for Alimosho, where we have 12 schools,” he said.
“We are providing them with basic entrepreneurial knowledge and with the key mandate to return to their schools to establish the entrepreneurship club and run practical mini businesses, which is different from what they will learn in the classrooms.
“Currently, no fewer than 25,000 students are active in SEA-Hub activities; they are young Nigerians and 60 per cent of this number are girls. SEA-Hub is active in 320 secondary schools,” Oyediran said.
He also explained that the SEA-Hub students were taught to identify challenges in their immediate community.
According to him, they are to brainstorm to provide innovative business solutions with emphasis on starting up such business with little or no fund/capital, which is considered the unique selling point of SEA-Hub.
Oyediran said the GIZ-SEDIN was not a funding initiative, but a technical support initiative that was considered more sustainable.
Also, Ms Adetola Salau, the Senior Special Assistant on Education to the Lagos State Governor, said, with the COVID-19 pandemic, it had become pertinent to merge technologies with skills, critical thinking and problem solving abilities to be able to survive.
Salau said: “The project STEAM UP Lagos was conceived to actualise the first ‘E’ which represents education, infused with technology and making sure that we meet global standards. One of such standards globally, is STEAM, which is a way of teaching and learning, bringing all the various subjects stream lined to solving problems and relevant learning for students.
“This event is for Lagos State Education District 1, which comprises Agege, Alimosho, Ifako/Ijaiye; it is considered the largest in Lagos State, it has the largest youth population and requires support. The selection process for the students and teachers represented are an aftermath of what we want, what the governor wants and what is good for the state, as those that we believe will be able to step down what is learnt at their various schools,” she added.
“With what happened during the pandemic, everything is now online and we are all participating in the global market space. What is paramount is the skill they are learning, being able to think critically, creativity, problem solving and collaborate with each other, use this and who knows what is going to come up from here,” she said.
While commending the GIZ-SEDIN for the partnership and their mandate to upskill, she said that the project was seriously walking the talk. We look forward to spreading this initiative to other districts like Badagry,” she said.