₦airaland Forum

oneolajire:
[b]Friend, go over the post once again. I neither wrote that all entrepreneurs must be inventors nor all investors have to be entrepreneurs. Thank God you own a fashion outlet,so seems you are out of the unemployment market. But my major concern is how to make maximum profit from education to eradicate unemployment and generate real time jobs. Engineering graduates need to immensely contribute the technological development of the nation by setting up their own engineering businesses and not by opening beer palour businesses cos of unemployment. Graduates from other courses also have their contributions to make as well.

Nigeria needs more than fashion outlets, we need garment factories. We need to set up companies that will turn wool to clothes. We need to put an end to the massive importation of foreign wears. Cos I know that there is no tailor(or fashion designer)that can do that in Nigeria. We should learn to be able to start small scale business in cloth production from the raw materials. We should develop our machine design and production capacity to be able to create finished products(such as various garments) that can compete with the foreign ones.[/b]

ITSaWRAPPP:
Entrepreneurship is not only about invention but creating opportunities for yourself, taking risks and managing your time for no one but yourself. I did not invent how to make suits or other corporate wears but I run a fashion outlet. Not been an inventor does not disqualify me even though I strive to strategically add my creative ability to give my brand a unique identity.

Not all inventors are entrepreneurs and not all entrepreneurs are inventors.

hero2000:
Haaa! The post is long but very well written. You definitely have some views that are valid. We cannot or should not be content with graduates making Chin chin, etc(You must have studied engineering; so many reference to engineering). Value creation must move to another level!

But entrepreneurship is not only producing goods. I know you didn't say outrightly it is only about manufacturing goods but you seem to deemphasize the other areas of entrepreneurship. Look at our music industry. Those guys are doing extraordinary well. They are creating economic value(unfortunately not moral value!)

Look my point is that no matter how behind in economic / technological development the realities of living expenses is remorseless. Now that we as a nation refused to invest well in education people cannot wait till investment in technology and engineering to start making a living. Your foresight is superb. That is what we should be aiming towards. Your write up is calling us to that destination but we have to get something doing before then.

It is like someone who wants to increase his agric output so much that he planted ALL the seeds he has. He is now left hungry and destitute with nothing to eat. Yes his huge harvest is 5 months' time but if he is not careful he may die of hunger before the harvest comes.

ITSaWRAPPP:
Entrepreneurship is not only about invention but creating opportunities for yourself, taking risks and managing your time for no one but yourself. I did not invent how to make suits or other corporate wears but I run a fashion outlet. Not been an inventor does not disqualify me even though I strive to strategically add my creative ability to give my brand a unique identity.

Not all inventors are entrepreneurs and not all entrepreneurs are inventors.

porozhniy:
Only a person who has been equiped can invent. The concern of the average Nigerian graduate is his survival. I agree with the op 100%, govt policies in Nigeria can kill ur dreams b4 you even wake up. Reflect on the current power & fuel crisis, think what modular refineries & mobile power plants can do for the current economy.

oneolajire:
Let's start to tell the govt and policy makers that they need to invest and equip the Nigerian students so that they'll solve national problems. Nigeria needs modern libraries, laboratories and workshops so that we can develop goods and provide modern services for our nation.

aribisala0:
I am sorry it is NOT well written. It is littered with embarrassing solecisms. It is also quite shallow in terms of its analysis and conclusions. A passionate but mediocre offering all round and a resounding testament to the declining standards of our education system. My verdict: an unworthy discussion of a very worthy and worthwhile topic. It is difficult to reason properly when one fails to master language

Acidosis:
By the way, the Title is misleading. There is a clear difference between Innovation and Entrepreneurship.


I have done some research works on the two concepts so I'll put up my opinions here for review.

@OP, we have two types of Innovation:

1. Continuous innovation
2. Discontinuous innovation

What is discontinuous innovation? It is simply the creation of entirely new assortment of products for competitive advantage.

Continuous on the other hand is a revolutionary process, involving the reintroduction of a preexisting product.

Samsung Galaxy S7 is a Continuous innovation. So mind you, the big companies also engage in continuous innovation (what you termed not been innovative, copycats). You cannot fault an entrepreneur who is into bead making because it sounds petty while you exhort General Electric or Tecno, a company who copies the Samsung and LGs of this world.

Viju Milk is a continuous innovation
So also is that small entrepreneur selling Kunu and Nunu.

I can send you excerpt of that research paper for further understanding. Please do not discourage youths from doing the needful, with your opinion.

If you have a problem with petty trades for not being innovative enough, please what form of innovation has Dangote introduced to the Nigerian market? He is not the first to make Indomie, Sugar, Cement, etc. What he clearly GOT above other petty entrepreneurs in the country is MONEY, now that's why you need to blame the government for not providing good loans for its citizens.

As regards technological innovation, I've addressed that in my previous posts. The Engineering folks are to blame. Simply put, the average Nigerian, no matter how much you invest, cannot compete technologically with a Chinese or a Korean man.

That btw, is not a disadvantage as we could concentrate more on areas we have good competent hands, e.g. COMEDY, FOOTBALL, FABRICS, OIL, AGRIC.

oneolajire:
Nigeria is a country where all big investors have no inventions (tangible or intangible) to their credit. Bill Gates, Henry Ford, Michael Dell, Thomas Edison and the likes all have products to patent, but most entrepreneurs we have in Nigeria have invented nothing and have made it through dubious means. 

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. 

Entrepreneurship in Nigeria is also of the rich that colludes with the government to defraud the masses, destroy public corporations and infrastructures in order for them to import alternative goods. The rich set up few enterprises and often pay peanuts to their employees in order to increase their wealth; culminating into increase in poverty level and underemployment in the country.  

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. While Nigeria keeps wasting hard earned funds on Small and Medium Scale (SME) development, yet the businesses are nowhere to be found.

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.
 When will out textile, fashion and leather industry be able to make products of international standard? When will a Nigerian mechanic be able to manufacture car engines and other motor parts? When will our furniture makers be able to make furniture that will compete with ones made overseas? When will a computer repairer be able to produce motherboards, memorycards, 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.

Take a look at the furniture industry in Nigeria, you'll discover it is almost dead because foreign furniture has flooded the Nigerian market. Foreign furniture makers have been able to introduce much variety of products with various designs, even at exorbitant prices, yet people still buy them. Imported furniture  attains this much because modern machines are regularly produced to make new designs of furniture, but here in Nigeria, we only buy simple tools, we don't engage in design and manufacture of  machines/tools to be used in the furniture industry, so we are perpetually making furniture that cannot compete with the foreign ones. 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. The best entrepreneurship has offered us is to use social media means to engage in selling of imported products as well as setting up of few businesses with the use of foreign machines. It is appaling for government to still keep preaching the sermon that can never bring solutions to us.

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.

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 kind of entrepreneurship Nigeria needs is one in which Nigerian chemical engineers can set up refineries and petrochemical companies with the aid local resources. I would also love to see mobile phones, computers and other information technology gadgets developed and commercialised by Nigerian graduates of computer science. 

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.

oneolajire2000@yahoo.co.uk

phazotron:
don't mind the op. hes a frustrated dumbass who is directing his frustration and anger at thevwrong audience. this piece is for the federal govt not for the youths like me who areready to take the bull by the horn but are hindered by harsh business environment and tough credit requirements.

JohnNgene:
Hmmm... Your article is deep. Very deep!

The problem I have with it however is that you're attacking our local entrepreneurship from the angle of globalisation.

What do you have to say about the indigenous refining of crude oil in the creeks of Niger Delta for instance? Do you support the further destruction of such resourceful improvised efforts by the Nigerian government under the tag of "illegal refineries"? So that the Nigerian government can build proper refineries of "global standard"? Or do you realise that if government were to support and regulate these so-called illegal refineries, Nigeria would no longer need to import foreign refined oil in about five years time?

And please do not look down on our artisans, soap makers, bead makers, etc. These people would be the CEOs to invest in the industrialization that our country needs.

Forget about the Nigerian government. Have they provided basic amenities like roads and power? Talk more of having a long-term vision of global industrialization you're advocating for here?

Acidosis:
My brother we have been trying to raise them to world standard since 1900. The problem is the average I.Q of a Nigerian cannot process the same thoughts and abilities of the average Korean. Let's give up on trying to make chips. It is not a must to make chips. This is the time to embrace competitive advantage.

The Nigerian situation can be likened to a pig. Wash, tosh and clean up, it would land in the mud at the end.

We could focus on things we are good at, such as: service sector, entertainment, may be football and comedy. Let's leave engineering to those who can do it better and cheaper.

WarRLaY:
the government are not to be blamed , bit the citizen them selves, because we lack sense of thinking (thinking out of the box), people like bill gates, Steve jobs didn't goto college but yet came out successful, why? because they are not afraid of the unknown, they are people who believe they have limited time to live on earth and thought about doing something different

oneolajire:
I have spoken the bitter truth about Nigeria and not rubbished it. We have been moving in this directionless policy, yet no breakthrough. Why don't we practice entrepreneurship the way successful countries have done?

I believe the best way to develop a country is not by using crude means of production, but by using modern machines and other technological devices that can be improved over time. Blacksmiths can never have the capacity to supply our iron and steel demand, likewise the crude means of refining fuel can never provide quality fuel as well as produce significant quantity to supplement that of the standard refineries.

oneolajire:
Nigeria is a country where all big investors have no inventions (tangible or intangible) to their credit. Bill Gates, Henry Ford, Michael Dell, Thomas Edison and the likes all have products to patent, but most entrepreneurs we have in Nigeria have invented nothing and have made it through dubious means. 

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.

I concur... Entrepreneur is best initiated when the environment is favourable... How can a person think of owning a business venture when the economy is hard and the standard of living is double than what it used to be. Which money will you now say you want to use to own a business?
The government is entrusted to make the lives of its citizens better but we have not seen anything meaningful both in this administration and the previous one. It is just God that is still making is stand the way we are. May God just help us

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. 

Entrepreneurship in Nigeria is also of the rich that colludes with the government to defraud the masses, destroy public corporations and infrastructures in order for them to import alternative goods. The rich set up few enterprises and often pay peanuts to their employees in order to increase their wealth; culminating into increase in poverty level and underemployment in the country.  

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. While Nigeria keeps wasting hard earned funds on Small and Medium Scale (SME) development, yet the businesses are nowhere to be found.

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.
 When will out textile, fashion and leather industry be able to make products of international standard? When will a Nigerian mechanic be able to manufacture car engines and other motor parts? When will our furniture makers be able to make furniture that will compete with ones made overseas? When will a computer repairer be able to produce motherboards, memorycards, 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.

Take a look at the furniture industry in Nigeria, you'll discover it is almost dead because foreign furniture has flooded the Nigerian market. Foreign furniture makers have been able to introduce much variety of products with various designs, even at exorbitant prices, yet people still buy them. Imported furniture  attains this much because modern machines are regularly produced to make new designs of furniture, but here in Nigeria, we only buy simple tools, we don't engage in design and manufacture of  machines/tools to be used in the furniture industry, so we are perpetually making furniture that cannot compete with the foreign ones. 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. The best entrepreneurship has offered us is to use social media means to engage in selling of imported products as well as setting up of few businesses with the use of foreign machines. It is appaling for government to still keep preaching the sermon that can never bring solutions to us.

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.

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 kind of entrepreneurship Nigeria needs is one in which Nigerian chemical engineers can set up refineries and petrochemical companies with the aid local resources. I would also love to see mobile phones, computers and other information technology gadgets developed and commercialised by Nigerian graduates of computer science. 

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.

oneolajire2000@yahoo.co.uk

WarRLaY:
the government are not to be blamed , bit the citizen them selves, because we lack sense of thinking (thinking out of the box), people like bill gates, Steve jobs didn't goto college but yet came out successful, why? because they are not afraid of the unknown, they are people who believe they have limited time to live on earth and thought about doing something different

aribisala0:
Interesting ...........
But is your distinction not Artificial ? Based on your definition EVERY Innovation is in some respects continuous. The definition needs greater clarity

Also you appear to create the impression that YOU introduced the terms ,is that the case?

oneolajire:
Nigeria is a country where all big investors have no inventions (tangible or intangible) to their credit. Bill Gates, Henry Ford, Michael Dell, Thomas Edison and the likes all have products to patent, but most entrepreneurs we have in Nigeria have invented nothing and have made it through dubious means. 

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. 

Entrepreneurship in Nigeria is also of the rich that colludes with the government to defraud the masses, destroy public corporations and infrastructures in order for them to import alternative goods. The rich set up few enterprises and often pay peanuts to their employees in order to increase their wealth; culminating into increase in poverty level and underemployment in the country.  

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. While Nigeria keeps wasting hard earned funds on Small and Medium Scale (SME) development, yet the businesses are nowhere to be found.

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.
 When will out textile, fashion and leather industry be able to make products of international standard? When will a Nigerian mechanic be able to manufacture car engines and other motor parts? When will our furniture makers be able to make furniture that will compete with ones made overseas? When will a computer repairer be able to produce motherboards, memorycards, 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.

Take a look at the furniture industry in Nigeria, you'll discover it is almost dead because foreign furniture has flooded the Nigerian market. Foreign furniture makers have been able to introduce much variety of products with various designs, even at exorbitant prices, yet people still buy them. Imported furniture  attains this much because modern machines are regularly produced to make new designs of furniture, but here in Nigeria, we only buy simple tools, we don't engage in design and manufacture of  machines/tools to be used in the furniture industry, so we are perpetually making furniture that cannot compete with the foreign ones. 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. The best entrepreneurship has offered us is to use social media means to engage in selling of imported products as well as setting up of few businesses with the use of foreign machines. It is appaling for government to still keep preaching the sermon that can never bring solutions to us.

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.

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 kind of entrepreneurship Nigeria needs is one in which Nigerian chemical engineers can set up refineries and petrochemical companies with the aid local resources. I would also love to see mobile phones, computers and other information technology gadgets developed and commercialised by Nigerian graduates of computer science. 

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.

oneolajire2000@yahoo.co.uk

oneolajire:
Nigeria is a country where all big investors have no inventions (tangible or intangible) to their credit. Bill Gates, Henry Ford, Michael Dell, Thomas Edison and the likes all have products to patent, but most entrepreneurs we have in Nigeria have invented nothing and have made it through dubious means. 

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. 

Entrepreneurship in Nigeria is also of the rich that colludes with the government to defraud the masses, destroy public corporations and infrastructures in order for them to import alternative goods. The rich set up few enterprises and often pay peanuts to their employees in order to increase their wealth; culminating into increase in poverty level and underemployment in the country.  

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. While Nigeria keeps wasting hard earned funds on Small and Medium Scale (SME) development, yet the businesses are nowhere to be found.

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.
 When will out textile, fashion and leather industry be able to make products of international standard? When will a Nigerian mechanic be able to manufacture car engines and other motor parts? When will our furniture makers be able to make furniture that will compete with ones made overseas? When will a computer repairer be able to produce motherboards, memorycards, 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.

Take a look at the furniture industry in Nigeria, you'll discover it is almost dead because foreign furniture has flooded the Nigerian market. Foreign furniture makers have been able to introduce much variety of products with various designs, even at exorbitant prices, yet people still buy them. Imported furniture  attains this much because modern machines are regularly produced to make new designs of furniture, but here in Nigeria, we only buy simple tools, we don't engage in design and manufacture of  machines/tools to be used in the furniture industry, so we are perpetually making furniture that cannot compete with the foreign ones. 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. The best entrepreneurship has offered us is to use social media means to engage in selling of imported products as well as setting up of few businesses with the use of foreign machines. It is appaling for government to still keep preaching the sermon that can never bring solutions to us.

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.

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 kind of entrepreneurship Nigeria needs is one in which Nigerian chemical engineers can set up refineries and petrochemical companies with the aid local resources. I would also love to see mobile phones, computers and other information technology gadgets developed and commercialised by Nigerian graduates of computer science. 

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.
Fact.
oneolajire2000@yahoo.co.uk

blueseacats:
You nailed it, one thing the op did not mention is that sme's account for more than 80% of employment in developed world . Our major problem is corruption and lack of orientation for the populace.