By Peter Osalor

Nigeria faces a number of challenges that can only be met if it has innovative, well-educated, and entrepreneurial citizens who, whatever their walk of life, have the spirit and inquisitiveness to think in new ways, and the courage to meet and adapt to the challenges facing them.

Moreover, a dynamic economy, which is innovative and able to create the jobs that are needed, will require a greater number of young people who are willing and able to become entrepreneurs, young people who will launch and successfully develop their own commercial or social ventures, or who will become innovators in the wider organisations in which they work.

Entrepreneurship

Because education is the key to shaping young people’s attitudes, skills and culture, it is vital that entrepreneurship education is addressed from an early age. Entrepreneurship education is essential not only to shape the mindsets of young people but also to provide the skills and knowledge that are central to developing an entrepreneurial culture.

It is important we embrace this ‘global age’ paradigm in our education system as it has been done in China, India, Australia, Europe, U.S.A and of lately the Asian tigers (Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and the Koreas).The most advanced form of this new model is what is referred to as ‘TEACHERPRENEUR’,

Which Bill Gates was referring to in 2010 when he said ‘five years from now on the web, you will be able to find the best lectures in the world and it will be better than any single university’.

This involves embedding entrepreneurial education into education and training right from the primary school to secondary school and tertiary institution. The essence of this is because education is key to shaping young people’s attitudes, skills and culture, it is vital that entrepreneurial education is addressed from an early age, besides, age is no barrier to entrepreneurship as   Tony Hsieh of Zappos started selling worms from raw mud when he was 9 years old, Steve Job, Richard Branson and Mark Zuckerberg of the Facebook fame all started off as young entrepreneurs.

The time is ripe for us as a country to stop celebrating mere certificates and dormancy, while primacy and recognition should be given to creativity, skills and enterprising spirit. The present times have shown over time that the global arena is blind to your credentials but is a wealth creating slave to your skills and abilities.

Anyway, it is not your credentials that guarantees success in the global/information age but rather your problem solving abilities, critical thinking ability that can discern ‘fact from fiction’, your ability to adapt (un-learn & re-learn), your creative and innovative abilities and your life-long love of learning. If your ‘piece of paper’ failed to deliver these then whilst it may have successfully prepared you for the industrialized 20th century economy but it has certainly failed you in the globalized 21st.

As Alvin Toffler puts it, ‘The illiterates of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn unlearn and re-learn’. It is the acceptance of this open secret that should make policy makers and the general populace to shift attention from the conventional way of thinking that you must be a graduate before achieving success.

Some of the inventors such as Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of school to make it in life because of their innovative, creative and enterprising spirit and not necessarily because of certificate.