Economy
SMEDAN Seeks Adoption of Entrepreneurial Education Model to Tackle Unemployment
Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) says its educational model is a tool for securing employment, addressing poverty and increasing the standard of living of Nigerians. The Chairman, Board, SMEDAN, Otunba Femi Pedro, made the assertion during the SMEDAN Tertiary Institutions Entrepreneurship Development (TINEDEP) Programme held in Lagos on Monday.
Pedro said the model focused on soft and hard skills acquisition to make lives flourish. He said it had the capacity to tackle the increasing unemployment among youths, which had resulted to high rates of social vices in Nigeria.Pedro, quoting the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) unemployment record of 33.3 per cent, said the increasing indices showed that unemployment and underemployment contributed largely to social unrest, kidnapping, and other vices.“The unemployment and the underemployment problem is particularly pathetic, as the number of those coming out from various institutions looking for employment opportunity is alarmingly embarrassing.” The economic miracles witnessed among the Asian Tigers, such as China, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, South Korea, and India, have clearly shown that development is driven by the people’s innovation, creativity, and enterprise.” Unfortunately, Nigeria has not been able to enact similar feats owing to the poor linkage between knowledge and development, and poor synergy between the private and the public sectors of the economy.“This may have been due to our educational model, lack of appropriate skills, knowledge, and sufficient entrepreneurial culture,” Pedro said. The SMEDAN Board Chair called for the scaling up of investments in infrastructure and human capital, as practical strategies towards employment generation.He said that human capital development could be further facilitated through a well-structured curriculum that was skill and entrepreneurship focused. Pedro said that an entrepreneurial-focused education system would play a critical role in the development of the economy of any nation.“In the present educational system, certificates and degrees only prepare students to be job seekers and not job creators, as the tertiary institution does not place needed emphasis on entrepreneurship and vocational training. “Meanwhile, entrepreneurship and vocational training usually prepare students to become entrepreneurs. “TINEDEP is aimed at preparing students for the fourth industrial revolution due to the paradigm shift in today’s teaching and learning. “It is no more ‘go to school, get good grades and get a good job’; it is now ‘go to school, get good grades and acquire skills of being your own boss’ starting your own business. “We can only achieve this through an efficient Entrepreneurship Education and Entrepreneurship Development.” We are also working out modality to see how we can add value to the tertiary institutions Entrepreneurship Scheme (TIES) recently launched by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and are desirous to work with CBN and other stakeholders to ensure the success of scheme. “We should confront the hydra-headed problem of youth unemployment with entrepreneurship /enterprise education and development which TINEDEP of SMEDAN and TIES of CBN are designed to achieve,” he said.(NAN)
The Nigerian Exchange Ltd. (NGX) continued its bullish trend on Wednesday, gaining N183 billion.
Accordingly, the market capitalisation, which opened at N59.532 trillion, gained N184 billion or 0.31 per cent to close at N59.715 trillion.
The All-Share Index also added 0.31 per cent or 303 points, to settle at 98,509.
68, against 98,206. 97 recorded on Tuesday.Consequently, the Year-To-Date (YTD) return increased to 31.
74 per cent.Gains in Aradel Holdings, Zenith Bank, United Bank For Africa(UBA), Oando Plc, Nigerian Breweries among other advanced equities drove the market performance up.
Market breadth closed positive with 34 gainers and 17 losers.
On the gainers’ chart, Africa Prudential, Conoil and RT Briscoe led by 10 per cent each to close at N14.30, N352 and N2.42 per share, respectively.
Golden Guinea Breweries followed by 9.95 per cent to close at N7.18, while NEM Insurance rose by 9.74 per cent to close at N10.70 per share.
On the other hand, Julius Berger led the losers’ chart by 10 per cent to close at N155.25, Secure Electronic Technology Plc trailed by 9.52 per cent to close at 57k per share.
Multiverse lost 7.63 per cent to close at N5.45, Haldane McCall dropped 6.07 per cent to close at N4.95 and Honeywell Flour shed 5.62 per cent to close at N4.70 per share.
Analysis of the market activities showed trade turnover settled lower relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions down by 49.44 per cent.
A total of 320.10 million shares valued at N6.48 billion were exchanged in 7,943 deals, compared with 939.41 million shares valued at N12.81billion traded in 9,098 deals posted in the previous session.
Meanwhile, ETranzact led the activity chart in volume with 70.27 million shares, while Aradel led in value of deals worth N1.22 billion.(NAN)
The central parity rate of the Chinese currency renminbi, or the Yuan, weakened 22 pips to 7.1870 against the dollar on Monday.This is according to the China Foreign Exchange Trade System.In China’s spot foreign exchange market, the Yuan is allowed to rise or fall by two per cent from the central parity rate each trading day.
The central parity rate of the Yuan against the dollar is based on a weighted average of prices offered by market makers before the opening of the interbank market each business day. (Xinhua/NAN)
Arewa Youths Initiative for Energy Reforms (AYIFER), has urged Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) to do everything possible to bring Kaduna Refinery back into operation.
National Coordinator of the group, Mr Bashir Al’Amin, stated this in a statement issued on Friday in Abuja.
Al’Amin specifically called on the Chief Executive Officer of NNPCL, Mallam Mele Kyari, to do all within his powers to rejuvenate the refinery and bring it up to global standard.
He said that having delivered the Port Harcourt refinery, coupled with the establishment of Dangote Refinery in Lagos, attention should be shifted to Kaduna refinery for easy spread of petroleum products.
“We are calling on Malam Mele Kyari to expedite action on Kaduna refinery so we can be at par with other regions in the country.
“We equally beg the NNPCL to do professional work in rehabilitating the old refinery and deliver a standard and functional petrochemical refinery and not a blending plant.
“Kyari should resist any temptation that could make him do something that can jeopardise his good image,” he said.
Al’Amin said that since the extinction of groundnut pyramid and textiles in Kano State as well as PAN in Kaduna State and with the Kaduna refinery getting moribund, a lot of youths had lost their jobs.
According to him, all their hopes in the north are tied to the legacy refinery, expressing the hope that God would use Kyari to deliver it well and on time.
He said that the group was solidly behind NNPCL in prayer and would be ready to celebrate the company if its expectations were met. (NAN)
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