By PROVIDENCE OBUH

The Academy for Entrepreneurial Studies (AES) has embarked on enlightenment initiative to address unemployment, as the Yaba College of Technology (Yabatech)   students enjoyed its Operation 500 Students entrepreneurial programme.

Speaking during the Academy’s Operation 500 Students entrepreneurial programme per campus, held in Yabatech premises in Lagos, President of the Academy, Dr. Ausbeth Ajagu said that the  programme initiated by the Academy is basically to redirect students of the  Nigerian Tertiary Institutions to their innate wealth creating potentials, explore the vast wealth creating opportunities that abound in their respective communities and engage themselves in productive economic endeavours while on campus, in preparation for the world of work outside the campus.

Ajagu, represented by Chairman Caniz Limited, Dr. Austin Izagbo, said, “Poverty is a factor of poor economy and that is why we are compelled to generate a program like this aimed at poverty eradication in our land. Strictly speaking, poverty in Nigeria is a silent killer, a daily growing cankerworm that is gradually drowning our nation.

“The problem of unemployment has also been traced to the inability of our educational system to produce graduates who can discover themselves and convert their acquired knowledge and skills into entrepreneurial ventures. This challenge is the basis for the Federal Government’s directive, that every Tertiary Institution in Nigeria should incorporate Entrepreneurship Education in their curricula at all levels.

“As Nigeria’s foremost entrepreneurial development institution, we believe that if the avalanche of wealth creating potentials dotting the entire landscape of our dear fatherland – Nigeria, are well harnessed by the citizenry, we would be having over employment rather than the debacle of underemployment or unemployment as the case is today.

“Imagine if about 150,000 graduates leave schools as wealth and employment generators rather than job seekers, the advantage is that they automatically become catalysts in our employment generation drive.”

Meanwhile, the programme is aimed at the following: to inculcate entrepreneurial skills and culture in the students, create and stimulate entrepreneurial awareness and culture in institutions and in general, promote self discovery, self development and self expression in entrepreneurial activities among students.

He  emphasized that the high moral decadence amongst youths today is a product of poor upbringing as well as negative peer influence that exists in tertiary institutions.

He noted that to achieve a virile and productive Nigeria and Nigerians, there is the strong need to re-orientate and inculcate best practice principles in the future leaders “our today’s student via total positive mental transformation because “as a Man thinks, so he is.”

He explained that to inculcate best practice, the AES through its programme collaborates with various schools’ authorities to mould selected 500 students as critical mass per campus who would be trained, closely monitored and mentored to be Positive Change Agents (PCA) and role models.

“It is our hope that these 500 students, as light house would be able to influence their colleagues through their enviable behavior on campus.”