By Henry Uche
Following the economic hardship brought about by the global pandemic, economic experts have advocated that having entrepreneurial mindset should be a top priority of every household in other to keep going especially during tough times as Nigeria and other countries face today.
They maintained that it is entrepreneurial mindset that brought about the production of vaccines by men and women who prepared themselves to convert challenges into opportunities to explore their potentialities. Speaking at a webinar yesterday, on “The Enterpreneurial Mindset: Transforming Nigerian Economic Ecosystem”, the president, Institute of Entrepreneurial Excellence Innovation and Sustainability (IEEIS), Ngozi Ogoke, called on the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Youth Development and every household to have a rethink and begin to inculcate the entrepreneurial mindset in children and young people as the way forward.
Ogoke called for synergy among all stakeholders across sectors to rejig and redesign their curricula to fit into the current reality of things noting that the world is in the era of solving problems in practically. She said, “Entrepreneurship should be a top priority for every household, institutions and corporate bodies. Employers need to stir and trigger he entrepreneurial mindset in their employees so that they can be creative and innovative, these skills are requisite for the 21st century economic environment.
“It’s this entrepreneurial mindset that triggered men and women in developed economies to swing into action to develop and manufacture vaccines and other products the world is using to combat COVID-19. We in Nigeria and Africa cannot continue to depend on China and other countries for virtually everything we need. We need to develop our entrepreneurial skills and create things for ourselves”.
She added that ELI would partner with the education sector to educate the educators in other to transfer the requisite knowledge to children and young people in the education sector, the aim according to her, is to give young people the opportunity to have practical knowledge and experience in whatever career they chose to pursue in life.
“Let’s keep re- echoing it in every facets of human endeavor, we can’t rely on the government to make all things happen, we have all it takes to create things for ourselves. For this purpose, the Entrepreneurial Learning Initiative (ELI) and the Institute of Entrepreneurial Excellence Innovation and Sustainability (IEEIS) and others are working hand in glove to bring about this shift in mindset for Nigeria and Africa at large, the situation already is thought- provoking, so let’s rise and put our ideas into reality,” she charges.