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

word !

Hmmmmm

Nice post

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 being 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.

Let me rent a space for my business eFyer here. M o d, please no vex

ITSaWRAPPP:
Entrepreneurship is not only about invention but creating opportunities for yourself, taking risks and managing your time for no one but yourself. I do 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.

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.

[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]

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.

Friend, you need to go on-line and find out the kind of SME's they practice in advanced countries. They are never that of mere technical skills. If we really want to create lots of employment opportunities, we must build an education/research/technology based entrepreneurship.

ITSaWRAPPP:
Entrepreneurship is not only about invention but creating opportunities for yourself, taking risks and managing your time for no one but yourself. I do 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.

Valid point. True that.

I have no option than to agree with you op.

But then, necessity is the mother of great inventions, so unemployed Nigerian youths should see this as a wake up call to invent something that will change their life and create more sustainable job opportunities for the future Nigerian children.

.

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?

Thanks for rubbishing your country what have you contributed in improving your immediate environment.What impact have you made on other people.Abeg start something that will help those around you,forget the Government.

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.

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.

Another lazy Nigerian graduate.Being a graduate does not means you should not get your hand dirty.Your paper qualification is what is deceiving you. Learn from the IBO , that's why they have less unemployed people

God Bless well said. you nailed it

ourchoice:
I have no option than to agree with you op.

But then, necessity is the mother of great inventions, so unemployed Nigerian youths should see this as a wake up call to invent something that will change their life and create more sustainable job opportunities for the future Nigerian children.

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.

ade2008:
Another lazy Nigerian graduate.Being a graduate does not means you should not get your hand dirty.Your paper qualification is what is deceiving you. Learn from the IBO , that's why they have less unemployed people

Funny comment though! Do you mean the Ibos are not sharing the agony of unemployment and poverty? Have you ever lived in the South Eastern part of Nigeria before you make your erroneous assumption? Funny enough, you do not know the status of the writer nor what he has been doing to improve the quality of life in Nigeria. Your judgement is crass.

elderken:
God Bless well said. you nailed it

We need to think out of the box. If we keep preaching entrepreneurship and vocational education and refuse to do the needful investment in qualitative education, we will continue to suffer as a nation. Thanks

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.

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.

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.

Yeah, but then every problem creates an opportunity for great minds.

I remember one Indian guy who graduated from MIIT where he went to study mechanical engineering; automotive major.

This guy didn't stay back in United States after his graduation like many Nigerian youths would do, what did he do?

He left US back to his remote community in Southern India to do what you may ask?

In his village, they didn't have government electricity but they farm.

He used the waste materials produced by his local village farmers to design a steam engine plant that converts the waste to hot steam, and he used to steam to drive/propel a locally manufactured electricity generator with very large coil that ended up producing over 300kva electricity.

This guy designed 3 of this local steam plant in his community and started giving them constant electricity, and charged the villagers some money as electricity bill.

You need to see his local office, lol

He then hired more village boys as his staff, who helped him to maintain the plants, and also hired two ladies as bill collectors.

He didn't wait for his government, he gave his people rare solution to their problem and charged them.

This happened in 2002/03.

Later, when government wanted to electrify the community, they had no option than to partner with his existing electricity power company, and now he owns a big power generation company, expanding into other communities.

But if it were a Nigerian youth, he will never do that! It's degrading to his title: A GRADUATE!!! He will rather spend his entire life planning how to get job at Chevron, Mobil, Agip, Schlumberger, etc

I am sorry to say that we Nigerian youths aren't inventive enough...if we are, we won't need government in most things, but government will be forced to work and partner with us

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.

How? Talk is cheap my brother, we all hide behind our phone/computer to bare our minds. Nobody is willing to take the fight to the govt. We don't even know our common enemy, the irresponsible leaders have succeeded in diving us along ethnic & religious lines. PMB won the last general elections with 22+ votes, imagine what we can achieve with a youthcentric party & a sound intellect as presidential candidate. We certainly have the numbers, we can do it, but we'd rather fight for PDP or APC than stand against them.

@ourchoice. The Nigerian govt is the biggest killer of innovations. The Indian govt heavily funded the training of her citizens in STEM courses abroad so they'd come back home with the requisite experience to power their emerging economy. With Nigeria, the govt would rather tax students studying abroad than arrest our brain drain problem by investing in knowledge. Would you honestly come back to serve Nigeria if the govt refused to invest in your development?. Obtaining a mining licence in Nigeria takes 1yr. Licence for a satchet water factory costs 1M. State govts can't even build power plants without remitting a % to the national grid. Modular refinaries, the PIB Bill nko? Your guess is as good as mine. If to say i study abroad, na to remain there sure pass.

ourchoice:
Yeah, but then every problem creates an opportunity for great minds.

I remember one Indian guy who graduated from MIIT where he went to study mechanical engineering; automotive major.

This guy didn't stay back in United States after his graduation like many Nigerian youths would do, what did he do?

He left US back to his remote community in Southern India to do what you may ask?

In his village, they didn't have government electricity but they farm.

He used the waste materials produced by his local village farmers to design a steam engine plant that converts the waste to hot steam, and he used to steam to drive/propel a locally manufactured electricity generator with very large coil that ended up producing over 300kva electricity.

This guy designed 3 of this local steam plant in his community and started giving them constant electricity, and charged the villagers some money as electricity bill.

You need to see his local office, lol

He then hired more village boys as his staff, who helped him to maintain the plants, and also hired two ladies as bill collectors.

He didn't wait for his government, he gave his people rare solution to their problem and charged them.

This happened in 2002/03.

Later, when government wanted to electrify the community, they had no option than to partner with his existing electricity power company, and now he owns a big power generation company, expanding into other communities.

But if it were a Nigerian youth, he will never do that! It's degrading to his title: A GRADUATE!!! He will rather spend his entire life planning how to get job at Chevron, Mobil, Agip, Schlumberger, etc

I am sorry to say that we Nigerian youths aren't inventive enough...if we are, we won't need government in most things, but government will be forced to work and partner with us

Good comment. The major challenge is that of the government that has deprived the educational/scientific environment of adequate assistance. We need a functional system that can make innovative ideas come to reality as well as innovative products being commercialised. There are only two engineering products that were innovated by Nigerians and have successfully been commercialised. They are the yam pounding machine and the EAT-SET device(used in blood transfusion). Unfortunately, both products were commercialised outside Nigeria cos we do not have the capacity to develop them from innovative stage to commercialised stage. Likewise, we have thousands of products in innovative stages but have never got to commercialised stage. Yet we still have more products to innovate. Our major problem is the environment(well equipped labs and workshops) to bring more innovative products as well as commercialised already innovated ones.

porozhniy:
@ourchoice. The Nigerian govt is the biggest killer of innovations. The Indian govt heavily funded the training of her citizens in STEM courses abroad so they'd come back home with the requisite experience to power their emerging economy. With Nigeria, the govt would rather tax students studying abroad than arrest our brain drain problem by investing in knowledge. Would you honestly come back to serve Nigeria if the govt refused to invest in your development?. Obtaining a mining licence in Nigeria takes 1yr. Licence for a satchet water factory costs 1M. State govts can't even build power plants without remitting a % to the national grid. Modular refinaries, the PIB Bill nko? Your guess is as good as mine. If to say i study abroad, na to remain there sure pass.

U got it. The Nigerian govt must train students abroad and must be ready to give good wage and provide well equipped labs and workshops that can function like the foreign ones. Knowledge is being wasted when these two important factors are missing, and that is why most graduates stay back overseas. These two factors are also responsible for brain drain.

OP, from the whole write up I think you are discouraging entrepreneurship in Nigeria.

Secondly, are Nigerian youths, graduate or entrepreneurs responsible for their lack of global standardization in terms of competition with developed countries or the government?

Most entrepreneurs have global ideas but the resources and basic amenities to strive are not available for success moreover the government policies are not favourable at all.

porozhniy:
How? Talk is cheap my brother, we all hide behind our phone/computer to bare our minds. Nobody is willing to take the fight to the govt. We don't even know our common enemy, the irresponsible leaders have succeeded in diving us along ethnic & religious lines. PMB won the last general elections with 22+ votes, imagine what we can achieve with a youthcentric party & a sound intellect as presidential candidate. We certainly have the numbers, we can do it, but we'd rather fight for PDP or APC than stand against them.

I got you. This is not a matter of politics, it is a matter of policy. We have been practising this useless policy since the military regime. The only thing most youth know is nothing but immediate enjoyment and entertainment. Only few youth think about the future of this country.

Lol


Email follow sef?

porozhniy:
@ourchoice. The Nigerian govt is the biggest killer of innovations. The Indian govt heavily funded the training of her citizens in STEM courses abroad so they'd come back home with the requisite experience to power their emerging economy. With Nigeria, the govt would rather tax students studying abroad than arrest our brain drain problem by investing in knowledge. Would you honestly come back to serve Nigeria if the govt refused to invest in your development?. Obtaining a mining licence in Nigeria takes 1yr. Licence for a satchet water factory costs 1M. State govts can't even build power plants without remitting a % to the national grid. Modular refinaries, the PIB Bill nko? Your guess is as good as mine. If to say i study abroad, na to remain there sure pass.

My brother, do u know that Nigerian government was did that sponsoring of talented Nigerians to go school abroad: Russia, Europe and America?

What happened? Those Nigerians got there, became carried away by the luxury life in those developed countries and refused to come back.

Some who tried returning only came back with imported foreign goods they brought back to sell and make fast money.

Nigerians as a whole have societal problem, not just about government

Kutunban:
OP, from the whole write up I think you are discouraging entrepreneurship in Nigeria.

Secondly, are Nigerian youths, graduate or entrepreneurs responsible for their lack of global standardization in terms of competition with developed countries or the government?

Most entrepreneurs have global ideas but the resources and basic amenities to strive are not available for success moreover the government policies are not favourable at all.

I must discourage what is not working for us and what will not work for our future. Our future is in our hands, we need to tell the govt what we need for our success. That have made their millions and have saved so much for their children unborn. We need to create our own functional environment.

You are wrong.
Entrepreneurship doesn't have to be big. The peasant farmer , the market woman ,the mobile trader, the mai ruwa etc are all entrepreneurs.
The founder of Hyundai was once a newspaper vendor, Ekenedilichukwu was once an apprentice mechanic and conductor. Coscharis was once an apprentice.
Entrepreneurship is not for everybody. The lack of goods and services at every level is the foundation for entrepreneurs.
Stop complaining and look for opportunities.
Nobody owes you a living.
The government has failed and it will take a long time for things to be turned around.
You can be the difference you want to see.

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