Votech, Agricultural Science and Entrepreneurship Education As Pathways To Self-Reliance

As unemployment continues to soar in Nigeria, forward-thinking students are embracing learning opportunities that will boost their career scope in the global job space. In this article, Tunde Uchegbuo throws light on how students could become self-reliant by harnessing the job creation opportunities that abound in TVET, Agricultural Science, and Entrepreneurship Education.

According to media reports, over one million candidates registered for the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination in Nigeria. The majority of these candidates applied for admission into courses that society ascribes “prestigious” status.

The 2023 UTME was not different as the choice of courses of study in Nigeria’s tertiary educational institutions over the years had been anchored on the high status attributed to some fields of academic pursuit. Thus, while some departments attract thousands of applicants, the supposedly “non-lucrative” courses appeal to less than ten (10) candidates.

While it is assumed that a degree in those fields practically opens doors to well-paying job opportunities, this is not always the case as instances abound where the only consolation such degrees bring is the high social status they confer on the holders.

For instance, most admission seekers shun courses in vocational and technical related fields, agricultural science, or entrepreneurship even when the opportunities are offered to them. These academic fields are only accepted as a last resort, or what is popularly called “at all at all naim bad pass” in Nigerian parlance. Ironically, these areas of study hold a higher potential for self-reliance.

Take Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) as a case study. Although the field is globally acknowledged to provide sustainable human capital development with its capability to equip youths with practical knowledge and industry-specific skills, yet, it is one of the least choices for admission seekers.

The usefulness of TVET can better be appreciated in the words of Beth Dunford, Africa Development Bank’s Vice President for Agriculture, Human and Social Development, who noted that “African youth have the potential to become the world’s largest resource for productive and innovative labour if they are equipped with quality and relevant skills.”

In the same way, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) cited government and private entrepreneurs’ increasing investment in Africa’s agricultural value chains and the consequential rise in the number of small and medium-sized agribusiness firms.

This is even as the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) revealed that Agribusiness has a huge potential to improve Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) because it is still at the centre of the Nigerian economy and provides the main source of livelihood for the majority of Nigerians.

More so, the gains made with the introduction of modern agricultural value chains have created better opportunities for self-employment, good wages, and better working conditions, just as the projected growth in Nigeria’s population to 400 million by 2050 means a corresponding demand for food, as well as raw materials for agro-industrial processing.

These are potent indicators that the benefits derivable from Agriculture are yet to be harnessed, thereby making it one of the lucrative courses to study in Nigeria as agriculture will remain a major player in the economic growth and sustainable development of the country in many years to come.

This accounts for why tertiary educational institutions are rejigging their Agricultural Science curricula to train a new generation of motivated graduates that will leverage digital technology, innovative farming techniques, and sustainable entrepreneurship skills to be self-reliant through the money-making agribusiness value chains.

However, while technical and vocational studies and agriculture have the potency to solve Nigeria’s unemployment crisis, the ability to harness the opportunities they hold to create successful businesses remains a big challenge.

This is attributable to the fact that the failure or success of most businesses around the world is hinged on the managerial capabilities of the owners. To this effect, the need for the teaching of entrepreneurship education because of its capacity to equip students with the right skills to run businesses, and promote self-employment, sustainable growth and development cannot be overemphasised.

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), entrepreneurship is the “enterprising human action in pursuit of the generation of value, through the creation or expansion of economic activity, by identifying and exploiting new products, processes, or markets.”

Going by this definition, entrepreneurship is about solving problems and addressing gaps in society or markets to make a profit by applying a customer-driven model through efficient and effective coordination of the other factors of production.
Thus, entrepreneurship offers such essential skills as the willingness to take calculated risks, the ability to formulate an effective venture team, the creative skill to marshal needed resources, the ability to recognise business opportunities and the fundamental skill of translating ideas into reality.

This definition makes better meaning if it is associated with the gains the rise in Silicon Valley has recorded. So, to tap from the achievements, national and regional governments are directing their attention towards entrepreneurial ecosystems because it has become a key to promoting job creation and achieving the innovation needed for national development.

In this regard, the approval of entrepreneurship education as an academic programme in Nigeria’s tertiary educational institutions by Nigeria’s universities regulatory watchdog, the National Universities Commission, is commendable.

This will enable the students to acquire the needed skills and the mindset to succeed, while also equipping them with a knowledge of global trends that enable the development of new markets and the creation of new wealth.

But beyond the establishment of entrepreneurship as a degree programme, Ignatius Ajuru University of Education had gone further to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Webuust Technology Services, a world-class entrepreneurship acceleration and financing company in Finland, to jointly provide innovative business idea development tools that will transform students’ business ideas into real enterprises.

This deliberate policy by the Professor Okechuku Onuchuku administration is hinged on the fact that the skills and general concepts gained from entrepreneurship education apply to all fields and professions. Hence, such skills could help the students to discover the business side of their courses of study and consequently turn the ideas into small scale businesses that will lay a sure foundation for a prosperous future for themselves.