The Enugu State House of Assembly urge the State Government to issue a directive making entrepreneur/enterprise development studies a compulsory part of the curriculum in all public and private schools in the state.
This was contained in the motion on notice, motion No.2 sponsored by Ibenaku Onoh, member representing Enugu North Constituency.
Onoh alludes that unemployment is a fundamental problem facing the nation with its rate projected by the Federal Government of Nigeria to hit 33.5% this year 2020 with ripple effect of increase in all sorts of crime and criminalities such as armed robbery, kidnapping, insurgency, terrorism, drug abuse and the like.
Yearly, a huge number of youths graduate from the higher institution and after the compulsory one year service to her fatherland joins the long list of unemployed youths in search of white collar jobs. Many have stayed unemployed for more than a decade with no promise of a job in site. This ugly trend has to end and what better way than through entrepreneurship which will give rise to small and medium scale businesses and ultimately a rise in the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and development.
Onoh further stated that most European Nations have infused entrepreneurship and enterprise development studies into their educational systems and curriculum; this has resultant benefits such as consistent economic growth, job creation and increased societal resilience, reduction in crime and poverty rate, increased educational engagement and improvement in the quality of students among others.
Hence the need to emulate these developed nations and make entrepreneurship/enterprise studies a compulsory course of study in primary, secondary and tertiary institutions in Enugu state. This move will help shape the mindset of the youths to think and work towards becoming innovators and job creators instead of graduating from higher institution of learning to joining the endless job seekers league.
In his contribution, the Leader of the House, Ikechukwu Ezeugwu of Udenu constituency applauded the mover of the motion. He said, “An early start of skill development will arm the youngsters with confidence to express their ideas, face risks and challenges associated with Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) while reducing unemployment to the barest minimum”.
The chairman House committee on Information and Communication, Jeff Mbah, member representing Oji-River constituency after commending the motion however advocated that a technical committee be set up to monitor the enforcement of this motion. To this end, the Speaker of the House, Rt Hon Edward Ubosi appointed the chairman committee on Education as the head of the committee to follow up the House’s resolutions conclusively.
