Entrepreneurship/vocational education is government's way of telling the youth and graduates that she (the government) lacks industrialisation and job creation strategies while the youth have been left to fate.

Entrepreneurship/vocational education is government's way of making the youth/graduates look intellectually lazy and
burdensome as well as telling them that they are have been
abandoned in the valley of unemployment. Unemployment rate increased simply because government owned industries and companies get strangulated by the python of corruption as well as the refusal of the government to establish new ones.

Entrepreneurship in advanced countries is about innovations,
inventions, improvements, expansions, people and institutional empowerment. Modern and sophisticated skills are being utilised to manufacture goods and services which culminates into abundant job creation.

Entrepreneurship in Nigeria is of the graduate job seeker told to engage in bead making, soap making, hair dressing, laundry and so on. These businesses have neither inventions nor advancement to add to the business practice and the economy, as they also have little or no impact on the international market.

The government of advanced countries often invest billion of dollars on education and research, so they always have intellectuals who will offer innovative products and services to the world. These products and services are initially developed into small scale businesses as they many even grow into large enterprises.

Only an insane person will keep doing the same thing the same way and expect a different result. Am yet to see a nation that got developed by investing so little on the education of her youth and students but spend so much on SME propaganda.

Still searching for a nation that gave nothing more than mere, non-professional, common, stark and non-sophisticated skills/training to her youth and achieved rapid industrial development. Why should we buy a trailer engine, fix it in a car and try to make it
compete with an aircraft? Why should we make people earn mere
skills and expect them to compete with foreign sophisticated
technologies? We have to know that the issue of local production of
goods and services is a serious competetion with the developed
nations.

Some questions for the proponents of entrepreneurship/vocational
education.

1. When will out textile, fashion and leather industry be able to make products of international standard?

2. When will a Nigerian mechanic be able to manufacture car engines and other motor parts?

3. When will our furniture makers be able to make furniture that will compete with ones made overseas?

4. When will a computer repairer be able to produce motherboards, memory cards, monitors, just to mention a few?

Did America achieved greatness by emphasising on vocational
trainings on how to make shoe polish, bake cake, produce detergents, event decorations , frying akara and establishment of
football viewing centres?

Did Britain get it right by teaching her youth how to start a beer palour and salon businesses or by ensuring technological dynamism? I wondered if it is mere phone repair training was what brought China among world's mobile phone producers. Over and over again, I see entrepreneurship and
vocational education as a scam.

It is only engineering that provides modern machines, stack entrepreneurship cannot. Entrepreneurship and and vocational education has never helped Nigeria in the manufacture of modern machines for production of finished goods that can compete favourably with imported ones.

Every sector of the Nigerian economy has been badly affected by the erroneous policy of entrepreneurship and vocational education.
From the agricultural sector to the transportation sector, from
manufacturing to education, from construction to entertainment,
name it, we have rendered our nation incapacitated when it comes
to production of goods and services. There can never be abundant
job opportunities as long as we keep executing this lame practice.
I wonder why we have not given so much vocational training to
professional operating as doctors, nurses and pharmacist in the
medical field. We give this set of people trainings that can make
them compete favourably with their foreign counterpart. I believe it
should appear proper to the government to substitute
entrepreneurship and vocational education with the training they
receive in the teaching hospitals. The government (after emptying
the laboratories and workshops of polytechniques and universities)
substituted requisite training for our engineers and scientist with
entrepreneurship and vocational training, so they are rendered
handicapped when it comes to provision of modern goods and
services as well as job creation.

WHAT NEED TO BE DONE
It is high time we changed our job creation policy of
entrepreneurship and vocational studies to provision of qualitative
education at all levels, especially science and technology education
so that Nigerian graduates would possess requisite modern and
sophisticated skills for our nation and the world market at large. It is only qualitative education and intensive research that can initiate
intellectual thinking for creation of innovative goods and services.
Entrepreneurship and vocational studies have been found to have
contributed immensely only to economy of nations with massive
investments in education and research. Singapore and South Korea
are the examples of nations that have eradicated illiteracy and have invested huge funds into science and technology education, so entrepreneurship thrives there.

Let the laboratories and workshops of our secondary schools and
higher institutions be adequately equipped with modern and
facilities so as to provide avenues for learning practicals. We need
to replicate the likes of Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg who utilised the qualitative education they obtained in the tetiary institutions to
create worldwide business ventures in their fields. Real entrepreneurship is when Nigerian graduates of electrical
engineers can produce transformers, power generation turbines,
alternators, televisions from local technologies. Metallurgical
engineers must be able to produce steel for oil and gas pipelines as
well as in train and car manufacturing. Combustion engines, pumps, hydraulic and pneumatic parts must be what our mechanical engineers must be able to manufacture from their companies.
Businesses of agricultural science graduates should able to feed the nation cos they should empowered to do so. This is what is called real entrepreneurship. Businesses that leads to industrialisation are offshoots of science and technological discoveries and investments.

The entrepreneurship that Nigeria needs is one in which local
engineering enterprises will be able to metamorphous into
multinationals like General Electric, Ford Motors, Chevron, Microsoft Corporations,Tata Steel and the likes. This is how we can solve the problem of unemployment as well as put an end to the massive importation of good in Nigeria. However, with this, Nigeria will become industrialised and be listed among the developed nations of the world.

Thank you.

I absolutely share your views on this, I have always said that, it makes no sense to force money on graduates to go into business as an alternative to paid employment. Most Nigerian graduates would have been contented working in their field of study to further develop their professional skillset rather than being given unsolicited funds to go into businesses which they are ill - equipped to manage.

The funniest part is, when professional graduates like lawyers, Engineers or even doctors are given grants or loans to start snail farming. when they should have been allowed to grow in their field first before probably creating a business within their field of expertise. Rather government should focus on supporting existing small businesses that are ready to create jobs. I recently read a well - written article on this same issue about two weeks ago. It can be found here... http://allafrica.com/stories/201602170564.html

@ op, well done you have made my day. Unfortunately, we don't have lreaders that think like you.

Entrepreneurship is and will always be the key to grow this country...
People really don't understand what it means...
U sart a small business dose not mean it must remain small

I can start a small poultry farm of 100 birds but my play in the next 15 years would be to produce 30000 dressed chicken per day.... It's achievable

The ability to think big is what we lack in this country....

Look, go and learn a trade, YouTube is a great, in fact, I see that jewel, as man' greatest gift to fellow man, look, my friend, you can learn any trade, you want, even belly dancing, programing, video editing, 3D modelling, web development, web designing, sewing, baking, driving, hair treatment, tattooing, CCTV installation, AC tecnician , car technician, electrician, anything, at all you want, If you want to build a steam engine to produce electricity, YouTube is flooded with videos, and the best thing I love is, YOU WILL BE LEARNING FROM THE VERY BEST THE WORLD HAS TO OFFER. Patience is needed, I am a car technician I only spent 1 year at two different workshops, but I know more than many so called mechanics. thanks to YouTube. com