education, human security and entrepreneurship

Education, Human Security and Entrepreneurship

Professor Peter A. Okebukola, OFR

Text of 7th Convocation Lecture presented at Delta State University, Abraka September 6, 2012

Preamble I am honoured, very honoured to deliver the 7th Convocation Lecture of Delta State University (DELSU). Let me register my appreciation to the Vice-Chancellor and Senate for approving my candidature to be the convocation lecturer today. Having had my primary and secondary education in Sapele, I feel a sense of homecoming to a State that nurtured me in my growing-up years. It also excites me in no little way to be part of one of the convocation ceremonies organised under the charge of Professor Eric Arubayi, the Vice-Chancellor which will clear backlogs from 2007/2007 and catch up with the current set of graduating students. The Vice-Chancellor has assured us that from now on, the university will strive to conduct its convocation ceremonies in due season. Since 1992, DELSU has been in active pursuit of its mission of “promoting quality education, character and cultural transformation, to meet the challenges of our time through exemplary scholarship and professionalism for the purpose of addressing local, national and international issues in key areas so as to contribute to the improvement of the global community”. In 2011, DELSU was the 13th most-preferred university in Nigeria for candidates seeking admission into 117 universities existing at that time. It had a first-choice application from 36,433 candidates. Today, it is third in rank in the number of full professors among the 37 state universities in Nigeria. It is placed No. 58 in Nigeria in the 2012 webometrics ranking. Most joyful for me is that data obtained from the National Universities Commission on August 31, 2012 confirmed that of the 43 undergraduate programmes offered by the university, 40 earned full accreditation status and one placed interim. This brilliant performance is better appreciated when one notes that in 2010, none of the programmes was in the full accreditation category. If a university is to be given a prize for the most impressive improvement in performance in accreditation, it is Delta State University. The 20-year success story of DELSU cannot be fully told without appreciating all the vice-chancellors who had offered service since the inception of the university. Professor F.M. Ukoli laid the foundation for the university. Professor Pius Fada added his building blocks. Then came Professor Abednego Ekoko as Sole Administrator who cleared the stables and set course for Professor I. Igun who applied his brilliance to further re-position the university. The tenure of Professor John Enaowho witnessed impressive developments. Here we are with Professor Eric Arubayi who has been in the saddle for a little more than two-and-half years and the university is witnessing academic and physical development at a rate which surpasses those of many of his predecessors in office. We have been watching developments in the university with keen interest and are marvelled at the tremendous achievements of the Eric Arubayi administration. With so many quality buildings springing

7th Convocation Lecture, Delta State University page 2 Peter A. Okebukola

up, international linkages being serviced and academic programmes earning the badge of honour from NUC and professional bodies, we cannot but say, “well done, VC Arubayi”. This is clearly a true case of practising what one preaches since he is a professor of educational administration and planning. With a book entitled “Towards Efficiency in School Administration” among his over 100 published works, we can see efficiency in action in the administration of Delta State University. Little wonder his alma mater, Fort Hays State University, Kansas, USA, honoured him with the 2012 Alumni Achievement Award, the association’s highest honour, established in 1959 to recognise graduates who have made outstanding and unselfish contributions in service to their community, state, or nation as citizens, in chosen career fields, or through philanthropic work. Here at home, he has been honoured with the Merit Award from the Delta state government for fighting examination malpractice in Nigeria. We await in no distant future, his earning the national award of Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic (CFR). The success story of DELSU is incomplete without the contributions of Council, Senate, indeed, all staff and students of the university. We applaud you all and entreat that you should continue to do your best to uplift the name of the university. Introduction A few months ago, during a courtesy visit to the headquarters of the State Security Service in Asaba, I saw some ten young men in custody for alleged participation in kidnapping. The lads had education but ostensibly no jobs to financially empower them sufficiently to meet their basic needs. Probably lacking in entrepreneurial skills to set up legitimate business, these evil boys veered into the dark and sinister “business” of kidnapping for filthy lucre. Come with me to Lagos where a few weeks ago, a group of young boys claiming to be undergraduates allegedly drugged, raped and murdered the daughter of a retired General. Joblessness, tendency to get rich quick and criminal mindedness combined to form a propelling force to lure and harm the lady who was entrepreneurial as she was a fashion designer. Details are still sketchy but the pointers are leading to a conclusion that if the alleged offenders had education with good values and had entrepreneurial training, they would not have been part of the sinister act. This now sets the stage for the lecture entitled “Education, Human Security and Entrepreneurship”. The twin goals of this lecture are to (a) put in perspective the relationship among Education, Human Security and Entrepreneurship; and (b) propose the colouration which the delivery of education and entrepreneurial studies can take in Delta State University to position the university to intervene positively in enhancing human security in Nigeria. The thrusts of the arguments in the paper are that we should see Nigeria’s human security challenges beyond the narrow political lens and expand our thinking to include dimensions of quality education for all and gainful employment for the youth through entrepreneurship. While not


discounting the intimidating forces of socio-political configurations and alignments rocking the Nigerian ship, the view is canvassed in this lecture that the counteracting forces of education with entrepreneurship will attenuate the impact of other forces on human security. Education: what education? For the purpose of the lecture, education is defined in a broad sense as "a process of updating the knowledge and skills of the individual for the purpose of making that individual useful to himself or herself and to the community." It is not strictly taken to mean going to school, although going to school is a pathway to receiving education. The home, the church, the mosque and other places of worship, the market place, a ride in a public bus, interaction with significant others - friends, colleagues, and siblings, and apprenticeship in an auto-mechanic workshop are some other pathways. These different "roads" to education form the basis for the formal, non-formal and informal typology. The formal "road" being school-based, like attending St. Malachy’s College and DELSU; the non-formal in non-school settings such as learning to be a barber or tailor- as an apprentice of the master barber or tailor. Non-formal education is also offered through the mass media in the form of educational broadcasting. The informal pathway is through casual and usually unplanned interaction with other persons or things. Watching the mother cook in a kitchen is an informal way of daughters (also sons who dare to come) learning important culinary skills. There is a pervasive tendency to be narrow in framing the boundaries of education. There are four main components in the framework- knowledge, skills, attitudes and values. There are inter-linkages among the elements and hence education is taken to be complete only when we acquire bits and pieces of all rather than digging in with some. The education of the DELSU students who will be graduating tomorrow will be incomplete if their knowledge and skills in say, biochemistry or political science are not supported with values of good citizenship and positive attitudes such as honesty and diligence. On the matter of human security Let us begin the discussion on the subject of human security with a few examples. When the university staff earns good salary and able to pay school fees, house rent and other bills, and a little to spare for savings, he or she feels secure. When the Vice-Chancellor travels from Abraka to Asaba without Professor (Mrs) Arubayi fearing for his safety in the hands of kidnappers she feels secure. Students who are Christians not worshipping under the fear of attack by boko haram fundamentalists feel secure. If I were to go to the streets of Abraka to inquire about what human security means to the ordinary folks, the preponderance of the views will be on issues of personal safety from armed robbers, kidnappers and cult


members. They will be right. They are however narrow in their perception since the issue of human security is broader in spectrum. At the Centre for Human Security of the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library where I serve as Director, we define human security as freedom from want and freedom from fear with regard to a range of evolving threats including illiteracy, poverty, food insecurity, international terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering, illegal arms dealing, institutional corruption, organised crime, disease and environmental degradation. We have identified the following thematic areas in our human security programmes:

Food Security: including availability and access to food; economics, politics and sociology of food security; vulnerability to food insecurity due to climate change and mitigating causative factors.

Poverty Vulnerability: including exposure of the poor to social, economic, political and cultural marginalisation.

Conflict Prevention, Mediation, Management and Peace Building: including conflict analysis, peace operations, mediating regional, sub-regional and national conflicts, peace building, transition and democratisation, and trafficking in humans.

Health and Healthcare Security: including availability, affordability and access to quality healthcare delivery especially for rural poor; combating HIV and AIDS.

Education and Employment Security: including access to quality basic and functional education; entrepreneurial education and employment security; achieving global goals such as Education for All (EFA) and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Climate Change and Environmental Security: including promotion of environmental awareness regarding climate change and promoting sustainable development practices within the African cultural context.

Cultural Security in a Globalising World: including promotion of the African cultural heritage and fostering cultural co-existence with peoples from other regions in a globalising world.

Energy: including provision especially to African rural population of affordable and renewable energy such as from solar and wind.

The state of insecurity in our nation has been a subject of deep concern. On all the themes outlined above, Nigeria is largely deficient as revealed from data presented at the 2010 Biennial Conference of the Centre (see Obasanjo, Mabogunje and Okebukola, 2010). If we are to highlight personal security to which the common person relates, there are three strands of challenges that have gained momentum in recent times. These are armed robbery, kidnapping and terrorist attacks. The last two have gained ascendancy in the last two years. Between 2010 and now, several thousands of cases of armed robbery were reported nationwide. There were hundreds of cases of kidnapping and cases of terrorist attacks. The zonal spread of kidnapping and terrorist attacks is intriguing. The south-eastern


and south-southern prevalence of kidnapping is now well known. The geopolitical zones in the north are stricken by boko haram attacks. What about entrepreneurial education? In the convocation lecture at the University of Port Harcourt about a year ago, I subscribed to the commonly held view that entrepreneurial education is an offering which tools learners with knowledge, skills and attitudes to be an entrepreneur - an innovator, the person who develops a new product, a new market, or a new means of production. In sum, it is all activities aiming to foster entrepreneurial mindsets, attitudes and skills and covering a range of aspects such as idea generation, start-up, growth and innovation. It is our desire through entrepreneurial education to produce inventors such as Graham Bell of the telephone fame, industrialists such as Dangote, highly successful entrepreneurs such as Chief (Senator) D.O. Dafinone, Chief Michael Ibru, Chief Sonny Odogwu and Chief Peter Asagba. Let me advance four reasons why entrepreneurial education is worthy of attention. First is to boost national economic development. In our march to being one of the 20 leading economies in the world by 2020, we need to catalyse the economy through engagement of the citizenry in productive economic activities. Keep in mind that the gross domestic product is a significant index of the economic standing of a nation. In turn, GDP is the total value of goods and services produced in a country over a period of time. With many more persons producing goods and engaging in services which entrepreneurial education assures, Nigeria’s GDP will witness a perceptible boost in the coming years. Indeed, the slogan “No entrepreneurial education, no vision 20-2020” has started to emerge. The second reason why entrepreneurial education is worthy of our focus is its potency in lowering poverty level and elevating living standards and the quality of life of Nigerians. With minimum of 60% of graduates of Nigerian universities empowered to set up small businesses through properly-delivered entrepreneurial studies programme, family income will receive a boost. In turn living standard and quality of life will be improved. A casual scan showed that a small business such as repairing of telephone handsets by some graduates in Abuja fetches about N250,000 monthly after all service bills are paid. Public sector salary for the young graduate is about N50,000. Being self-employed is more comforting with regard to income than employment in a white collar job. Hence with formal training in entrepreneurship, graduates will resist knocking on the door of government for employment. The third reason is that entrepreneurial education which translates to job creation will lower crime rate. Petty and vicious crimes are typically committed by young boys and girls who have no jobs and who need money for the basic necessities of life. Fourthly, it will


improve the relevance and public respectability of our universities. It is agonising to hear that our universities are producing graduates of little relevance to the economic development of the society. With entrepreneurial education on the scene, the day will begin to dawn when no graduate of the Nigerian university system will be out of gainful employment within two years of certification. Exploring linkage among Education, Human Security and Entrepreneurship Let us examine the connections among the three variables of interest in this lecture- Education, Human Security and Entrepreneurship. We posit that education has a direct link with the other two while it also observes an indirect path to human security through entrepreneurship (see Fig.1). Figure 1: Hypothesised Linkage among Education, Entrepreneurship and Security The linkage between education and entrepreneurship is through the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values that are transmitted during entrepreneurial training. The roadside mechanic who is enrolled at the University of Ibadan for a certificate course in auto-mechanic, the DELSU undergraduate who has successfully completed two courses in entrepreneurial education at the 300 and 400 level and the school certificate holder learning fashion design in a private school in Effurun, all exemplify the education- entrepreneurship linkage. Magnifying this link, we find direct proportionality between level of education and quality of entrepreneurship. A graduate barber has a high chance of giving you a nicer hair cut than one who dropped out from primary school. We can also imagine that a graduate tailor will be better in fashion designing than one with the old primary six certificate. We recognise a few outlying cases where holders of lower educational certificates have better entrepreneurial sense than PhD holders. Noteworthy also is that a sizeable number of globally-renowned entrepreneurs hold no university degree, It can be argued that if such persons are availed the opportunity of higher levels of education, their business acumen will be significantly enhanced.

Education Entrepreneurship Human Security


The education-human security link is explained also by the power of education in opening the door of the heart of people to discern between good and bad at the practical and intellectual rather than the religious plane. Okebukola (2010) provides a hypothesised causal model of this linkage with human security focusing on agriculture and health (see Fig. 2). A causal model is an abstract model that uses cause and effect logic to describe the behaviour of a system. One form of causal modelling is path analysis, which was originally developed in genetics, but was adopted as a technique in the 1960s by American sociologists such as Otis Dudley Duncan. Essentially, causal models are based on structural equations of the form z = b1x + b2y, and are analysed using regression techniques. However, a simpler way to understand the principle of causal models is to think of them as hypotheses about the presence, sign, and direction of influence for the relations of all pairs of variables in a set. Usually these relations are mapped in diagrams or flow graphs. In a standard scheme of model testing, the first step in the algorithm is to craft a hypothesised model. This is mere conjectural figuring based on theoretical knowledge of the elements in the model; in this case education, health, agriculture, human security and development. Next step is to test the model for fit through analysis of data collected on the relationships among the elements. The final step is to produce the model of best fit showing the quantitative strength and directions of the linkages between and among the elements. No empirical data (primary or secondary) are available to proceed to step 2 of the algorithm hence we settled for the conjectural first step of hypothesised modelling. The model benefitted from the meanings and dimensions of the elements of interest provided by Omolewa (2010); Fawole (2010), Shabani (2010), and Oduro and Opoku-Agyemang (2010) for Education; Kranjac-Berisavljevic (2010 for agriculture; Briggs (2010), Akinkugbe (2010), Okebukola (2010) and Jarret (2010) for health.

Figure 2: Hypothesised model of inter-linkages among education, health, agriculture, development and human security

employment

reduces

lowers

lowers

Training of farmers

Human Security

Education

Health

Agriculture

Health Security

Food Security

Economic Security

Environmental Security

Community Security

Personal Security

Political Security research

Maternal mortality

HIV/AIDS and TB

VPD, Malaria,, NCDs

U5MR and LEB

Improved yield

Improved varieties

mechanisation

Development

Development

Health Insurance

lowers

lowers


Three limitations of the hypothesised model are worth noting. Some of the figural representations are not aligned with the standard format; for example the depiction of the heart shape for education rather than rectangular box. It should be noted that this was for effect since the title of the model aims to portray education as being “at the heart” of the relationships. Second, the arrows showing possible unexplained variance by way of error, are not included in the model. Third, annotations could not be achieved on all the arrows on account of space constraints. All of these, however, fail to discount from the possible elegance of the model. Follow-up study to empirically test the model is currently underway. Now we proceed to describing the model. How do education, agriculture, health, development and human security connect? Figure 2 provides the hypothesised model which conveys that the seven dimensions of human security including health and food security, as well as development, are assured through education. Education guarantees, indeed bolsters health security; economic security through skills development and employment; environmental security through environmental education and stimulation to take action to protect the environment; personal security; community security; and food security through training of farmers, opportunity for mechanisation and deployment of research for improved yield and varieties. We should examine these linkages in a little more detail. Kranjac-Berisavljevic (2010) established the agriculture-education-health link. In her view, the development of human resources is essential for food security in Africa. An educated and informed populace is fundamental to any policies and strategies to reduce poverty, excessive population growth, environmental degradation and other factors that are most often the direct causes of hunger. This is especially true in low-income, food-deficit countries of Africa where there is an urgent need for human capacity development and for increased knowledge and information about food production. Information, education and training allow farmers to make use of new farming knowledge and technologies. Research shows that both formal education and non-formal training have a substantial effect on agricultural productivity. Three studies were quoted to support her thesis. A study in Nigeria in 1992 found that, an increase in the average education of farmers by one year, increased the value added to agricultural production by 24%. In Burkina Faso, a 1993 study found that crop yields were 25 to 30% higher for farmers who participated in training programmes than those who did not participate. A cost-benefit analysis carried out by the World Bank indicates that investment in the education of females has the highest rate of return of any possible investment in development. The central role of education in human security was underscored by Omolewa (2010). In his view, education is the process of enlarging peoples’ choices to live longer and healthier lives, to have access to knowledge, to have access to income and assets and enjoy a decent standard of living. Education enables people to make informed decisions. In addition, people are better able to articulate and protect their rights when they are educated. This view found expansion with Fawole (2010) who argued that education is correlated with improved reproductive health, reduced infant mortality and improved child nutrition. Education of mothers has the added benefit of increasing the probability of literacy for their daughters. Education increases creativity, and makes it easier for job-seekers to find gainful


employment. Education can be useful in resolving conflicts and building peace. It encourages debate and dissent, and may discourage the resort to violence. What about the linkage with health security? Jarret (2010) summarised this aptly. He reasoned that education and literacy, especially of women, provide the knowledge to manage health and the environment adequately for the family. Educated mothers are more likely to have healthy babies. The lowering of the cost of health insurance through education is also implied by the argument of Okebukola (2010). Oduro and Opoku-Agyemang (2010) would appear to steer us on a reasonable note to conclude. They hold the view that education is indispensable in matters of human security. “It is the pivot around which all the other indicators of human security: health, agriculture, good governance, industrialisation, social-cohesion and others revolve.” They also argued that the whole business of human security relies on human rights and social justice. Hence, education for human security should be a strategic priority for Africa in our efforts towards eradicating poverty, hunger, malnutrition and illiteracy. In all of these, education can be described as the keystone in the arch of human security. Ignorance breeds only slavery. Enlightenment brought about by education liberates the human mind and spirit. It is the liberated mind that is able to contribute meaningful to the development process. The link between education and development is positive and strong. The chief weapon in democracy's arsenal in the fight against poverty as well as inequality is education. From the foregoing, it merits concluding that education releases its potency in several areas. The following are worthy of mention:

Development of skills and knowledge for growing the economy and spawning new industries: The curriculum of schools through which formal education is provided is delivered to tool learners with knowledge, skills, attitudes and values. Knowledge and skills to be a good farmer or engineer; attitudes and values such as honesty, objectivity, perseverance and being a good team player which are necessary for the work place are taught in schools. On exiting school at the basic or higher education level, the learner is better prepared to contribute meaningfully to the economy. As everyday experiences have shown, the better barber, farmer, restaurant operator or the driver is one that is educated. Armed with the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values developed through education, the individual that joins the nation’s workforce is able to foster economic growth. Also, new industries are spawned through entrepreneurial skills acquired through education. Education promotes creativity. Education stimulates creativity. In turn, creative individuals are able to generate and apply creative solutions to the nation’s economic problems of local, national and regional communities. Creativity is an innate attribute which flowers in settings provided through quality education. Education engenders research for new inventions: Inventions which are pillars of the productive sector of the economy are products of research. Research skills are honed through education and the educated inventor is one with groundbreaking product. Machines used in industries and the engines for producing revenue-generating goods, were


designed by educated inventors through research. These research efforts translate to new inventions, processes and products which are boosters for the economy. Microsoft, Toyota and Boeing are some of the institutions that have exploited the power of education to leverage economy through research. Poverty reduction through education: A productive pathway to reducing poverty is to increase adult literacy rates. The literate adult is able to develop and use skills which will free him or her from the shackles of poverty. Improved skills for farming, trading and small-scale manufacturing go with literacy. General considerations: Education is necessary for:

promoting health, because knowledge about diseases, nutrition and hygiene is the best preventive medicine – and knowledge is the prerequisite for inventing new cures;

for protecting the environment and ensuring sustainable development, since it gives us knowledge about the web of life and how to preserve it;

for advancing gender equality, because educating girls and women is the most important factor for empowerment, accelerating development and improving welfare of children;

for extending democracy and good governance, because education enables citizens to know their rights and how to make their voices heard; and

a major antidote to religious and political conflicts and social unrest . There is also a key link back in our hypothesised model. Indeed, many modern growth theories explain economic growth primarily in terms of expanded human capital. Growth can also be linked to many other elements of human development - such as political freedom, cultural heritage and environmental sustainability. The opportunities that are vital in human life are of many different kinds: access to jobs, information and technology, access to productive assets such as land and credit, access to proper shelter, safe drinking water, basic education and health services, and access to physical infrastructure such as good roads, electricity and adequate communications. Equally important are opportunities to move about and speak freely, to pursue cultural and religious beliefs, to participate without discrimination in political processes and in activities of civil society, to be free from exploitation and to lead a life of self-determination and self-respect as a member of a community (Okebukola, 1997a; 1997b; 2009). These opportunities are of three broad types - economic, social and political. But the three categories are closely interrelated, and expanding one type of opportunity often helps expand others. Promoting access to education, for example, expands job opportunities (economic), helps people improve their status in society (social) and often empowers them in the community and society (political). Every one should have access to these opportunities to participate in economic, social, cultural and political life. They are a basic right. When the world's leaders drew up the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1947, they incorporated a holistic vision of rights - extending beyond free political and civil participation to economic, cultural and social development: "Everyone is entitled to the


economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality". Since 1947 a series of conventions and declarations have defined the content of these rights. A closer look at entrepreneurial education Two main approaches to entrepreneurial education have been described (see National Agency for Enterprise and Construction, 2004). These are the focussed approach and the unified approach. In the focused approach students and staff are located exclusively in the academic area of business, while the unified approach targets non-business students outside business schools. Over the past fifteen years the trend towards university-wide entrepreneurship education in the many countries in Europe and North America has been strong and gaining momentum. Entrepreneurship is no longer perceived as a discipline available to business school and technical university students only. There are two versions of the unified approach- magnet and radiant. In the magnet-model students are drawn from across a broad range of majors. Entrepreneurial activities are offered by a single academic entity, but attended by students from all over the university. All resources and skills are united into a single hub that facilitates the coordination and planning of entrepreneurial activities. This approach is the emerging model in the Nigerian university system and has been applied at MIT, where entrepreneurship programmes are administered under the Sloan School of Management. In the radiant-model individual institutes and faculties are responsible for facilitating the integration and visibility of entrepreneurship activities, thereby enabling entrepreneurial activities to be adjusted to the specific structure of individual faculties. An example is in Cornell University where the teaching of entrepreneurship education is diffused throughout nine schools and colleges. The history of entrepreneurial education in Nigeria dates back to the 1900s. The colonial administration slanted interest in producing middle-level rather than high-level human resources and invested in trades-based education for the youth. No. 4 Education Proclamation of Southern Nigeria of 1905 and the Education Ordinance of 1916 which covered the whole of the newly-amalgamated Nigeria emphasised technical and manual crafts to prepare the youth to be tradesmen. Schools especially those specially designated, offered instruction in carpentry, coopering and other crafts and taught rudiments of entrepreneurship (Taiwo, 1982). As Fafunwa (2002) noted, the indigenous system of education which predated Western-type education, “taught as part of education of the Nigerian child, weaving, sculpturing, blacksmithing, carving, farming, fishing, cattle rearing, hair plaiting, dress-making, leather-working, pottery-making, glass and bead-working, catering, dying, tinkering and many more” p.189. Owing to the perceived demeaning of such trades, institutional emphasis waned. The establishment of courses in some government departments such as the Nigerian Railway, marine, and Public Works between 1908 and 1935 marked the beginning of organised technical and vocational education which laid the framework for entrepreneurial education (Fafunwa, 2002). By 1945, endorsement was received through the report of the Commission on Higher Education in West Africa. Yaba Higher College was to be converted to a technical institute. By 1946, a 10-year plan was approved which proposed handicraft


centres for training in manual arts; trade centres for the training of skilled craftsmen; and technical institutes for the training of technicians. These centres were established by the three regional governments but the enthusiasm did not tarry long. Fast forward through time since the historical landscape of entrepreneurial education remained barren of noteworthy activities, we trace development at the university level. The curriculum of universities from 1948 till early 2000 provided slim room for entrepreneurial education as the goal was to produce graduates who will fit into existing job positions in the public and private sector. A handful of federal universities of technology and agriculture offered a smattering of topics on entrepreneurship in some of the courses taught to final year students. In a number of other universities some undergraduate programmes in economics and business administration also sprinkled a few topics on entrepreneurship which students learned “bookishly” and not for the strict purpose of practice. Most of the graduates that made successful adventure into the world of business drew on innate entrepreneurial skills rather than knowledge and skills picked from exposure to the university curriculum (Okebukola, Shabani, Sambo and Ramon-Yusuf, 2007). In 2004, the National Universities Commission initiated a series of efforts at addressing graduate unemployment in Nigeria. The primary goal was to enhance the production of nationally-relevant, globally-competitive and self-reliant graduates. Series of national studies on labour market expectations of Nigerian graduates isolated entrepreneurial education as one of several pathways to achieve this goal. Thereafter, NUC in 2005, moved in this direction with all Vice-Chancellors and a system-wide consensus reached in establishing entrepreneurial education as a compulsory course offering for all undergraduates in the Nigerian university system (NUC, 2005). By 2006, the Federal Government came to a similar realisation and a presidential directive was issued through the Federal Ministry of Education to extend entrepreneurship education to other elements of the higher education system- polytechnics and colleges of education beginning from the 2007/2008 session. NUC was to serve as Secretariat for the Presidential Committee on the programme. As chronicled by Uwani (2010), the Presidential Committee on Entrepreneurial Education was established in September 2006 and charged with the responsibility of developing a comprehensive Action Plan for the take-off of Entrepreneurship Education in all higher education institutions; creating awareness for all stakeholders; curriculum development; developing local teaching materials and case studies; evolving strategies towards establishment of Entrepreneurship Study Centres (ESCs) and guidelines for operation of the centres; encouraging the evolution of National Clubs and events for the growth of an entrepreneurial culture in the country; seeking additional funds to support the efforts of ETF that has primary funding responsibility to ensure hitch free implementation; capacity building for higher education institutions; and seeking collaboration of development partners in bringing world best practices to the programme, among others. The thrust of the efforts of the Committee was to lead to capacity of FME, NUC, NBTE and NCCE strengthened for conceptualising, implementing and evaluating entrepreneurial education; development of curriculum; development of teachers guide, instruction manuals


and students handbook; establishment of Entrepreneurship Resource and Knowledge Centre at NUC; capacity building for at least 10 teachers in each of the higher education institutions; development of MSc and PhD programmes in some selected universities; at least 50,000 students to receive training within the first 3 years; and at least 10,000 graduates to have gone into self employment by end of 2010. The major accomplishments so far are provision of policy direction to the higher education institutions by the HEIRAs and the Presidential Committee; production of a project document; conducted several national workshops; facilitated the attendance of academic staff from the HEIs to many local and international training programmes with a view to building their capacities; conducted study tours to institutions with good entrepreneurship programmes with a view to learning from best practices both locally and abroad; encouraged the creation and inaugurated the Association of Entrepreneurship Educators; and continuously encouraging linkages among Nigerian institutions and also with international academic and other research institutions (Uwani, 2010). Current status of entrepreneurial education in Nigerian universities Since 2005, Nigerian universities, as documented in the report of the University System Annual Meetings (USARM) for that year, have begun to shift focus towards infusing entrepreneurial studies in the curriculum using the NUC minimum curriculum standards as guide. The Presidential directive of 2006 bolstered the impetus of universities to join the entrepreneurial education train. By 2011 as a recent rapid survey showed (Okebukola, 2011), over 72% of the universities have Senate-approved entrepreneurial studies courses adopted/adapted from the NUC entrepreneurial curriculum guide (Fig. 1). About 15% have started full implementation of the programme. The exciting news from personal communication with Vice-Chancellors during the course of the survey is that a large proportion have installed the resource wherewithal to take off fully within the next one year.

Figure 1: Status of implementation of entrepreneurial education in the Nigerian university system (2011)

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

100

Curriculum in place

Full implementation

Partial implementation

Yet to start

73

15

51

36


The top four universities with full-fledged and actively operational entrepreneurial studies programmes are Covenant University, Pan African University, University of Ilorin and University of Ibadan. The efforts of these universities are documented below. Covenant University Ota Covenant University is known as one of the leading universities for entrepreneurship training, education and research in the Nigeria. The EDS Taught Courses Committee was inaugurated in 2002 as a teaching arm of the Centre for Entrepreneurship Development Studies (CEDS) charged with the responsibility of facilitating the growth of entrepreneurs in Nigeria. Specifically, it was set up for the purpose of planning and implementing entrepreneurship development programmes such as training, education, research and consultancy. Notable achievements of the university in the area of entrepreneurial education is collaboration with ECOWAS in fostering trans-border exchanges in Entrepreneurship Education; partnership with Tshwane University of Technology on fostering African content in Entrepreneurship Education; National Universities Commission, under the Education Partnership for Africa (EPA) with Essex University, UK, and Bayero University, Kano, is collaborating with Covenant University to host the Knowledge Exchange in Entrepreneurship Programme (KEEP) component of the partnership. Under the arrangement, two members of faculty were nominated to represent the University at a stakeholder meeting at University of Essex, UK; collaboration with National Universities Commission (NUC) on Capacity Building for Entrepreneurship Educators in Nigerian Universities; Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Federal Polytechnic, Nasarawa, Nasarawa State on the promotion Entrepreneurship Education; Partnership with Yaba Baptist Church, Yaba, Lagos on economic empowerment through skill acquisition.

Pan African University Entrepreneurial studies at Pan-African University is coordinated by the Enterprise Development Centre (EDC) which was established in January 2003, and now grown to be one of the leading enterprise support service providers in Nigeria. EDC combines entrepreneurial teaching with research, practice and experience to deliver knowledge to SMEs and provide value-added services aimed at growing their businesses. The Centre operates as a membership organisation for SMEs with functional businesses. Memberships are drawn from participants at the Lagos Business School's Owner Manager Programme, Alumni of EDC as well as other SMEs wishing to grow their enterprise. Being a part of Pan-African University, EDC is able to tap into the vast network of Alumni and Faculty for the development of SMEs. EDC has an advisory board that is made up of stakeholders in the SME sector. Since inception, EDC has been able to develop SME-focused programmes such as: Certificate in Entrepreneurial Management ( 30-day; 12-module programme spread over five months. This certificate course has been adopted by Goldman Sachs worldwide for their 10,000 women initiative; Certificate in Social Sector Management (for NGOs; Social Entrepreneurs, and others); Network Meetings (where SMEs network, learn and share experiences on


specific subject matter); Business Counseling and Advisory Services (aimed at guiding our members to take objective business decisions. For our Goldman Sachs Scholars, this has been structured into a FREE Wrap Around Service called Expert In Residence; mentoring (by experienced members and other experts within the network. For Goldman Sach’s Scholars, under the i-mentoring programme, staff of Goldman Sachs are able to be part of the mentoring system irrespective of their location and time zone; Enterprise Digest (a platform to provide information, build knowledge and share experience amongst those in the network); SME Toolkit and Business Edge (a product developed by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) the private arm of the World Bank, EDC is the Country Partner on the SME Toolkit and one of the five training partners on the Business Edge. Together, they are veritable tools for building the capacity of SMEs; Field Visits/Monitoring (Carried out by MBA students of Lagos Business School and SME focused consultants for structured “hand holding’). Over the years, EDC has developed a strong working relationship with the business community and consequently gained their confidence on matters relating to SMEs. It has collaborated/worked for a number of them on issues relating to SMEs e.g. Diamond Bank (Bright Ideas), HP Nigeria (HP MAP Centre), MTN (SME Expo, SME Assist) and Business Day Newspapers and Bottomline Magazine (SME information/promotion). Goldman Sachs (10,000 Women), The Coca-Cola Africa Foundation (Transformational Leadership Program); and British Council (Creative Lives). Apart from the relationship with the business community EDC also has a strong working relationship with the public sector. EDC has worked extensively with SMEDAN - the Government apex SME agency in Nigeria. Some of the activities include: Network Meetings, SME conference, Customised Training (for SME Business Counselors) and Policy development. In addition, EDC is a leading member of the SME group within the Nigerian Economic Summit Group. EDC has written a significant number of local case studies on Nigerian SMEs, a project that is further deepening our understanding of the challenges and complexity of SME operation in Nigeria. These case studies have already been published by the European Case Clearing House. The EDC model of supporting SMEs has been successfully replicated in five African countries – Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Liberia. EDC is now in the process of expanding this model to other Nigerian Universities as well as building a special purpose vehicle that will help increase Nigerian SMEs access to capital. University of Ibadan Entrepreneurship education in the University of Ibadan utilises an integrated approach which is makes it unique. In this model, all disciplines and callings, whether among students or staff are encouraged to materialise into business ideas. This is then supported one way or the other by the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Central to its mission is the concept of innovation and value addition. The aim is to stimulate a culture of innovation within the community and make individuals sensitive to opportunity spotting. Whilst vocational training is good, the University of Ibadan believes that vocational training, at


best, would train the hands, whereas, entrepreneurial training targets the mind and erases limitation from individual minds so that people can aim high. Based on this philosophy every department/unit of the university community is the target population with emphasis on the students who possess young, active and searching minds. All disciplines within the university community are trained to look inwards, search and identify areas within their specialist areas where innovation can be turned into gain for the individual and society. The design of the programme is such that all students and staff get sensitised through seminars and outreach programmes on a continuous and regular basis. This is the first level. At the second level all 200 level students of all faculties in the university take a compulsory GSP course. -3rd level -As a follow-up, to that course, interested students take the ETR 301, an elective course on entrepreneurship. During the course, students receive lectures and tutorials given by UI faculty and entrepreneurs in private practice. They are posted to businesses for the purpose of understudying and mentoring. Finally, they are required to develop business plans which they defend. Feasible business plans are then supported and financed either directly or through venture capitalists. Some of the student-owned businesses emanating from the ETR 301 are supported through incubation. The fourth level is the establishment of the Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer office – an arm of the CEI responsible for stimulating innovation, registration of patents and copyrights and working out the process of technology transfer. The university is in the process of developing its Intellectual Property Policy. Ahead of that however, an audit of the research output has been conducted. Through this exercise, inventions and innovations arising from research can be registered for Intellectual Property Rights and then commercialised. To encourage this process, Senate of the University has approved the Innovation Fair which should encourage members of the community to showcase their Intellectual Property assets. At the fifth level, the university encourages an atmosphere where entrepreneurship education is less formal and made to be fun. The Entrepreneurship and Innovation Society undertakes projects and activities that promote entrepreneurship without working for grades. The society organises seminars, visits to enterprise sites and trade fairs among others. Membership of the society cuts across all sectors of the university. An important aspect of the entrepreneurship education is the University-Private-Sector linkage. This is the sixth level. This is actualised through the body referred to as the UI-Business circle. Here students and staff in business get to interact with entrepreneurs in the different Chambers of Commerce and Industry and Association of Small Scale industrialists, among others. From this platform, there is experience-sharing and capacity building. SMEs get the benefit of business support by experts in the business-related disciplines as well as from better-experienced entrepreneurs. Following the recent directives of the Federal Ministry of Education, UI is eager to embrace the degree course in Entrepreneurship. The University of Ibadan recognises that this move will assist in building a critical mass of entrepreneurship educators in Nigeria.


University of Ilorin Formal entrepreneurship education started at the University of Ilorin in the 2008/2009 academic year with the establishment of the Technical and Entrepreneurship Centre (TEC) as a directorate of the University with mandate for entrepreneurship development and Training, Community based Experience and Services (COBES) and WorK- Study . The entrepreneurship training programme comprises of a 3- credit compulsory course titled Graduate Self Employment (GSE 301) which has theory and practical components and is taught by seasoned academics and entrepreneurs. The practical component is feasibility study, feasibility report writing and seminar presentation on entrepreneurial projects by the students. The GSE 301 course is taken at the 300 level of all degree programmes in the University. Entrepreneurial awareness is being driven in the University through sensitisation seminars, workshops, conferences and public lectures by successful entrepreneurs, some of whom are alumni of the University. Apart from the taught course, the entrepreneurial programme includes the establishment of revenue-yielding ventures by the University to serve the dual role of generating revenue for the University and serving as models for the students. In this connection, a number business proposals are being considered by the University topmost of which is the value addition to the local locust bean (iru) condiment through the development of new technologies for the production and innovative packaging of the condiment in cubes. Approval has been given by ETF for the funding of the research and development of this project through the regular ETF funding to Universities. Work has already started on this project in anticipation of the release of the approved fund. Second to this is the proposal for the production of ‘unilorin water’ which is almost at the implementation stage, having secured commitment for funding from the cooperative societies and Unilorin Microfinance Bank Limited. The university is also reviewing the overall Entrepreneurship Education in the University to expand the scope of the training for a more practical approach that will successfully launch students into the world of entrepreneurship before and after graduation. Olabisi Onabanjo University The Olabisi Onabanjo University in October, 2010 established the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Human Capital Development (CEHCD) specifically responsible for the academic and vocational training of students in entrepreneurial skills to make them job providers rather than job seekers. In line with the directive of the National Universities Commission (NUC), appropriate curriculum was evolved under the concept to train all students, including those at postgraduate level to be self-employed. The Centre has also put together programmes designed as refreshers/certificate courses (including vocational programmes relevant to the needs of the people in the University’s catchment area as well as seminars and workshops) in conjunction with the various academic departments in the University. In support of the centre, a former University Chancellor, Oba Otudeko, upon consultation by Management, agreed to support the Centre to the tune of N20million and had released a


sum of N10million as the first tranche towards the programme. The University will be providing additional needed fund for effective running of the Centre. Based on an approved structure for the Centre, particularly as it is a coordinating point for all entrepreneurial programmes and the bulk of the activities resting on the academic departments, the Centre has a Director, assisted by a senior administrative staff (SAR) as a Programme Officer, a Secretary and an office attendant. The foregoing is confirmatory of the potential of the Nigerian university system to take action in pursuit of the goal of rapidly improving the system. The success stories evidence the willingness of universities to set up entrepreneurial studies programmes that will be a model for Africa. In a few short years, Covenant University, Pan-African University, University of Ibadan and University of Ilorin, exemplifying several others, have installed sustainable entrepreneurial studies programmes. The flavour varies from university to university and the diversity from the focussed-model of Pan-African University with immense external support to the radiant approach of Covenent University, University of Ibadan and University of Ilorin with a determination to tap extensively from local resources. While other universities have lessons to learn from these success stories, the Presidency, indeed NUC, should wear a smile that the entrepreneurial studies initiative is well on course. Global Best Practices After the inspiring narration of efforts by Nigerian universities, we should now cast our scope abroad. What lessons can we learn from global best practices so that we can go beyond talk in implementing entrepreneurial education in the University of Port Harcourt and in other Nigerian universities? With over 5,000 entrepreneurial education programmes offered in higher education in the world, our choice of best practices to model needs careful selection. Two filtering criteria were adopted- high standing of the country in Global Entrepreneurship and Development Index (GEDI) and being among the top ten in the world league of universities with entrepreneurial education programme. Global Entrepreneurship and Development Index (GEDI). The GEDI is a research tool that captures the contextual features of entrepreneurship in 71 countries. The GEDI builds on and improves earlier measures of entrepreneurship by incorporating for the first time both its quantitative and qualitative aspects. The index allows the comparison of 71 countries’ entrepreneurial performance over a decade. The GEDI captures the contextual features of entrepreneurship by focusing on three broad areas which form the sub-indexes: entrepreneurial attitudes, that is, the society’s basic attitudes toward entrepreneurship through education and social stability; entrepreneurial activity, or what individuals are actually doing to improve the quality of human resources and technological efficiency, and entrepreneurial aspirations, or how much of the entrepreneurial activity is being directed toward innovation, high-impact entrepreneurship, and globalisation. The US and Denmark were selected on the basis of high ranking in GEDI. Two universities were selected from the US and one from Denmark. The two US universities are Babson College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The Herning Institute of Business Administration and Technology was selected from Denmark.


Babson College Babson College, established in 1919, is said to be the first academic institution in the world to offer a course in entrepreneurship. It is internationally recognised as the leader in entrepreneurship education. It was ranked first in entrepreneurial education in the US by U.S. News & World Report for 12 consecutive years. Its undergraduate programme was ranked first in Entrepreneurship by Business Week. Entrepreneurship is not just an academic discipline at Babson. It is a way of life. The faculty and staff recognise the interdisciplinary value of entrepreneurship and weave it throughout our curricular and co-curricular programmes. The skills learned through the entrepreneurship programmes are vital for the success of any business -- large or small, public or private, corporate or not-for-profit, local or global. Babson students holistically apply the management skills of traditional business disciplines to the recognition and shaping of entrepreneurial opportunities. They develop business models that make use of those opportunities in ways that create value. While the institution’s entrepreneurship programmes provide a broad skill-set for business they also provide highly customised paths in specific areas including new ventures, franchises, corporate ventures, socially responsible companies, and family-controlled enterprises. As gleaned from the Babson website, Babson campus is a living laboratory, where staff experiment, improve, and evolve how to teach entrepreneurial process and foster entrepreneurial mindsets. They take what is learned from their students’ and executive clients’ experiences to accelerate the ever-extending outer frontier of the field of entrepreneurship education. Many elite entrepreneurs are members of Babson’s Academy of Distinguished Entrepreneurs, the world’s first entrepreneurship “Hall of Fame.” These members often are inducted on Founder’s Day, the oldest tradition and annual celebration of entrepreneurship. On Founder’s Day, the College holds business plan competitions, the first ever established for students. On a separate date, they hold Rocket Pitch where students and alumni are challenged to pitch their business opportunities in three minutes or less to peers, faculty, alumni, and the business community. Babson’s Symposia for Entrepreneurship Educators (SEE) focus on case-method teaching and alternative pedagogies. Since 1984, it has trained over 1800 academics and entrepreneurs to teach by translating entrepreneurship theory to practice. SEE alumni are teaching and mentoring tens of thousands of students around the globe each year. Many of these educators and others from around the world join on an annual basis for the Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference (BCERC), the oldest and largest research conference for entrepreneurship in the world. The Babson undergraduate curriculum integrates core competencies, key business disciplines, and the liberal arts into foundation, intermediate, and advanced-level courses. The competencies are rhetoric; quantitative and information analysis; entrepreneurial and creative thinking; ethics and social responsibility; global and multicultural perspectives; and leadership and teamwork; and critical and integrative thinking. Based on feedback from


leading corporate executives, the curriculum is structured around these competencies to ensure that students develop varied skills, and are better able to adapt to an ever-changing business environment. All first-year students participate in the Foundations of Management and Entrepreneurship, a year-long immersion into the world of business where student teams develop, launch and liquidate their own for-profit ventures. Babson teaches accounting, economics, finance, marketing, operations, and organisational behaviour in an integrated series of courses. As part of the Advanced Programme, students design their own learning plans and concentrations, which can consist of upper-level elective courses in liberal arts and management, field-based experiences, and co-curricular activities. The F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College cultivates entrepreneurial thinking that students can apply in start-up ventures and the corporate environment. There are four degree programs that prepare students to become superior managers and able to meet the needs of progressive organizations. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) MIT’s entrepreneurial studies programme is one of the top-ranked in the US. MIT’s credo, mens et manus, mind and hand, percolates through MIT’s entrepreneurial culture and its many entrepreneurship courses. This core ethic - to carefully examine a problem, design and iterate a solution, and passionately implement it - is what drives the entrepreneurship students and faculty. The academic faculty are thought leaders examining how and with what effects innovation is turned into opportunities to create new goods and services. The practitioner faculty are successful entrepreneurs, investors, business and non-profit leaders that have found and grown significant innovation-based ventures. The entrepreneurship courses reflect this blend of analysis and implementation and are focused on exposing students to the foundations and practices of successful entrepreneurial careers, while also providing in-depth study in industries of interest to students. Beginning with the founding of Arthur D. Little, Inc. in Cambridge in 1886, MIT alumni, faculty, and students have played key roles in launching thousands of companies worldwide, ranging from small, specialized high-tech operations to corporate giants such as Genentech, Gillette, Hewlett-Packard, Teradyne, and Raytheon. Many of these companies have formed the cornerstone of new industries, including biotechnology, streamlined digital technologies, local computer networks, defense, semi-conductors, minicomputers, advanced computers, and venture capital. MIT scientists and entrepreneurs laid the groundwork for much of the current biotech industry - and biomedical advances have continued with MIT-originated developments such as the first effective new treatment for brain cancer in a generation. The MIT Technology Licensing Office (TLO) has more than 1,000 issued US patents in its portfolio, many with foreign counterparts. Each year, the TLO annually grants as many as 60-80 licensing agreements. The record of achievement of MIT-educated entrepreneurs is described in a recent study, "Entrepreneurial Impact: The Role of MIT". It estimates that 25,600 companies


founded or co-founded by living MIT alumni were still in existence in 2006, employing 3.3 million people worldwide and generating revenues of close to $2 trillion. That would make the ensemble of MIT-alumni companies the equivalent in GDP of the 11th largest economy in the world. MIT's impact extends far beyond the borders of Massachusetts, which headquarters MIT-alumni companies that employ about one million women and men. The report estimates that California firms started by MIT alumni employ over 500 thousand people, and twenty states have over 10,000 people employed by MIT entrepreneurs. This impact is global as well, with half of the foreign-student MIT-alumni entrepreneurs likely to return to their home countries. The courses offered at MIT in entrepreneurial education are listed in Appendix 2. The Herning Institute of Business Administration and Technology (HIBAT) Denmark HIBAT has made great strides in establishing a comprehensive entrepreneurial programme which is a model in Denmark and Europe. In 1999 HIBAT launched the Business Development Engineer (BDE) Programme. The programme distinguishes itself from other engineering programmes in offering a different approach to pedagogy and student involvement. The BDE programme is a 4½ year interdisciplinary engineering degree focused on business creation through the development of new products and ideas. The programme combines core science and technical disciplines with business economics, marketing, design and personal development. It includes a six-month internship and six-months of studying abroad. It focuses on action-based teaching and business plan projects. Projects are carried out in co-operation with a private company. Interdisciplinary activities involve the inclusion of business and language students from other faculties as an integral part of the programme. The programme has a strong focus on the development of student characters in developing entrepreneurial skills. Business creation projects provide a practical dimension to the academic content and form the backbone of the programme. Projects are structured as “loops” that become increasingly challenging throughout the course. The first loops cover business plans, needs analysis and market opportunities. Challenges With entrepreneurial education in Nigeria still in its infancy, a few challenges have started to emerge. Universities surveyed are burdened with the heavy initial outlay of implementing the programme. Trained personnel to deliver quality entrepreneurial education are in short supply. The environment which can permit easy start-up of small businesses is inclement. Graduates bubbling with newly-acquired entrepreneurial skills will be negatively affected by and unable to successfully grow their small businesses within this environment. Entrepreneurial training requires partnerships with industries. University-industry partnership is rather feeble as industry is suspicious of the quality of graduates from the university system and the quality and relevance of university-based research. Such weak relationship stands as a challenge for the success of the entrepreneurial studies programme (Okebukola, 2010).


Challenges to Education Several factors account for the depressed quality of the Nigerian educational system. Seven of these factors have been isolated by research as being dominant (see Okebukola (2008). Brief descriptions of what is considered ‘the big seven now follow.

1. Policy incoherence and implementation inconsistency In the frontline of efforts to maintain or boost quality, is the existence of well-articulated policies. Policy guidelines form the basis of action by implementers of the education agenda. The head teachers, principals, teachers, inspectors, directors, executive secretaries and directors-general rely on policy guidelines for action. At the local, state and federal levels, policies are enacted to guide educational activities. The umbrella policy is the National Policy on Education. From time to time, Ministries of Education at the State/FCT and Federal level enact policies on education in response to current needs. The gap between policy prescription and practice has remained wide. What factors bring this situation about? One, is the weak monitoring and evaluation mechanism. A potent inspectorate division which will turn the searchlight on the gaps and cause remedial action to be taken is hardly ever found at the federal, state and local government level. Secondly, the financial input into the system that can guarantee good performance is low. Thirdly, the operators of the system claim poor motivation and low morale. When policy is incoherent and inconsistent, implementers are confused leading to inaccuracies in practice. In turn, the quality of management and curriculum development is compromised. Incoherence is the typical consequence of lack of synergy between different levels of education. Inconsistency is the deviation in application of a policy or even a change in the policy for reasons that have not been thought through. In both cases, frequent change in leadership of Ministries of Education is the explanatory factor. Within the last seven years such leadership change especially at the level of the Federal Ministry of Education has translated into the promulgation of a policy one day and the scrapping of the policy the next. Some examples are the upgrading of some polytechnics to universities, the merger of the Scholarship Board with the then ETF and the change from 6-3-3-4 to 1-6-3-3-4 system.

2. Teacher inadequacies (quality and quantity) A major actor in the school setting is the teacher. There is a plethora of evidence (UNESCO, 2009) suggesting that teacher quantity, quality and motivation exert noteworthy effects on a host of school variables. These include enrolment, participation and achievement of pupils. The shortfall in teacher number translates to high pupil/teacher ratio and severe stress on teachers on ground. The link between teacher stress and productivity has been established (Okebukola and Jegede, 1992). Inadequacy in the number of teachers in the school system could therefore account for the declining quality of education.


Teacher quality is hinged on three knowledge bases. These are content knowledge, pedagogic knowledge and pedagogic-content knowledge. Many teachers in the system are frequently deficient in these knowledge bases. A recent national survey provides empirical proof of this assertion. Participants in the study identified a number of weaknesses that Education graduates exhibit after graduation to include shallow subject-matter knowledge, that is, poor knowledge of their teaching subjects; inadequate exposure to teaching practice; poor classroom management and control; poor computer literacy skills; inability to communicate effectively in English; lack of professionalism; lack of self-reliant and entrepreneurial skills; and poor attitude to work. On the matter of teacher quantity, the inadequacy is equally stark. At the basic education level, the system is carrying less than two-thirds of its teacher load. The situation is worse at the higher education level especially in the universities with slightly more than half of the full complement of full-time teachers engaged in the 124 universities. Adjunct and Associate lectureship predominate in order to enhance attainment of the minimum standards in teacher/student ratio. The existing model and practice of teacher education spew out teachers that are deficient in content and methodology. The motley assortment of "outreach" and "sandwich" centres for teacher education has weak pedagogical bases and frameworks. The input into many of these part-time programmes is of doubtful quality. The process is grossly deficient in terms of rigour, quality and quantity of teacher trainers, and the quality of contact. Inevitably, the products of such system turn out to be weak in content knowledge and pedagogic content knowledge. At the secondary and higher education levels, teacher quality cannot be rated above the average mark. The low rating of the teaching profession is seen in the scanty application for admission into Faculties/Colleges of Education. In 2011, of over 1,000,000 applicants for university admission in the UTME, less than five percent applied for courses in Education. Worse still, only few applications were received for the colleges of education. These data point to the lack of interest of candidates for a career in the teaching profession. The pervasive notion is that only the "academic dregs" make up the bulk of teachers - both in-service and practising. This notion is highly contestable giving the high calibre, commitment and industry of a good number of teachers. Unfortunately, this breed of teachers is not common occurrence. It is worth noting that this dim view of teachers is global in outlook (UNESCO, 2009). Closely linked with teacher quality and calibre of those in the teaching profession is that of teacher motivation. Extrinsic motivation in terms of salaries and reward structure is pitifully low in spite of the attempt at parity with other workers in the civil service. In the last five years, the conditions of service of teachers have been quite fair relative to others in the public service. Irregularity in the payment of teachers’ salaries that was a distinctive feature of the 80s and early 90s is fast fading. Notwithstanding this boost, teachers in Nigeria remain poorly motivated. Workload and the nature and import of services rendered far outweigh remuneration and social rating.


3. Funding Inadequacies The depressed quality of education in Nigeria has been explained in part by the inadequate funding of the system. All the communiqués and resolutions of major conferences and summits on the state of education in Nigeria have funding as an issue that should be addressed in order to get education on good track. Some however argue in the direction of gross mismanagement of available funds by managers of the system at all levels. All stakeholders in education including parents, students, teachers, development partners, have listed funding inadequacy as a problem. The argument for adequate funding for education cannot be faulted. However, the political will to be convinced by the argument has been weak. The lack of conviction derives from the notion that you cannot adequately fund education. Indeed no country in the world is able to adequately fund education. The effort being made is to keep narrowing the gap between what is required for adequate funding and current level of funding. Between 1999 and 2010, Government notably at the federal level has significantly improved the level of funding. The gap is closing but far from the pace required for a quantum leap in improving quality. Data on funding inadequacies show that the system had less than a sixth of what is required to deliver quality education at all levels.

4. Infrastructural/Facilities Challenges A conducive learning environment is predisposing to quality education. Since the learning environment is far from conducive in many Nigerian schools, quality has not been assured. At the basic education level, gross inadequacies in facilities for effective teaching and learning have been reported (Mohammed, 2008). There is inadequacy in the number of primary schools to support full enrolment of primary school-age children. Worse hit are the urban areas with dense population of children resulting in high pupil/teacher ratio. The shortage of schools and especially classrooms manifests in children receiving instruction under harsh conditions. This inclemency of conditions induced by low school number could be a key factor in diminishing the motivation of children and their parents for school attendance. At the senior secondary level, the situation is not different. Those who have visited their secondary school alma mater in the last two years will see the sharp contrast between the facilities they had while in school and the present state of the same facilities. Run-down buildings, broken down equipment and furniture, and bushy surroundings are typical. The universities are slightly better having benefited from recent funding to upgrade facilities. However, this improvement has not cleared the decay in infrastructural facilities in the universities. Classrooms, laboratories, libraries and the general environment of most universities are still far from a state that will promote optimal teaching, learning and research. The over 300 higher institutions have had to cope with a mammoth 1,200,000 applicants every year. The tight bottleneck created to enrolment has caused the sub-sector to witness sharp practices in admission including examination malpractice. Private sector participation is easing some of the pressure on public schools.


5. Curriculum Inadequacies The curriculum at all levels has deficiencies especially in relation to relevance and adequacy of content to meet contemporary needs of a knowledge society. It is a delight to note that NERDC, NUC, NBTE and NCCE are taking steps to update curricula for levels specific to their mandates. These efforts need to be fast-tracked since the bureaucracy involved delay release of the revised curricula, making them obsolete at the time of approval. The expedient way to go is to load the curricula with enduring skills rather than contents which become outdated by the year.

6. Poor Curriculum Delivery Quality in education has been lowered by poor curriculum delivery. Harsh and intimidating classroom interactions engender fear in pupils and hatred for school. Classroom transactions are usually in the form of four dimensions of interaction teacher - pupil; pupil - pupil; teacher - material; and pupil - material. The four interaction modes occurring simultaneously as teacher - pupil - material interaction is preferred in a constructivist learning setting. However, what predominates in most classrooms from primary through to postgraduate is the lecture, unidirectional mode. At the concrete operational stage of cognitive development where most primary and secondary school students belong, this mode of instruction contraindicates meaningful learning. The use of the lecture method can be traced to poor quality preparation first, and resource inadequacy next. Good quality teachers are known to be innovative in their teaching methods even in the face of acute shortage of teaching materials. Healthy classroom transaction is also stifled by high pupil/teacher ratio. In many urban centres, classrooms, especially in primary and secondary schools, are overcrowded. As many as 100 pupils are choked up in some classrooms. In mixed schools as we have in nearly all the primary schools and in most secondary schools, the girl-child is often disadvantaged in such large classes. Having to struggle with the boys for space and cope with characteristic intimidation by the boys in class, leave many girls at a disadvantage. In rural areas with reported cases of fewer pupils in class, classroom interaction is not any better. This, however, is for different reasons. One of these is the relatively lower qualification of teachers in rural areas. Other reasons include lower level of teacher motivation and inadequacy of resources. Classroom observational studies have shown that girls are not given enough opportunities for classroom participation as the boys by both male and female teachers. Boys are given greater opportunities to ask and answer questions, to manipulate materials and to lead groups. In the review of the studies on science classroom interactions in Nigerian primary and secondary schools, it was found that girls are given less time on task than boys. Girls also have lower opportunity to learn. These factors hinder the performance of the girl-child. There is scant use of new technologies. Equipment shortage does not permit individual work. Theory of practicals is a favoured mode. Since students are poorly taught on account of a host of factors relating to teacher quality and quality of the learning environment, performance in school and public examinations is compromised.


7. Social Vices

Examination malpractice, cultism, and sexual harassment are social vices that have crept from the larger society to our educational system. These vices, especially examination malpractice are exerting toll on the quality of products from the system. After the foregoing quick survey of the seven obstacles to progress, we should proceed to suggest the way forward. How to Get to Where We Should Be In preceding section, we discussed where we are in education in Nigeria. The next important road to travel is the methodology to be adopted for achieving educational targets. This is the focus of this section. The goal here is not to suggest solutions to all the problems bedevilling the education system. The intention is to focus on those issues impacting more on quality delivery of education. Reforms are proposed in the following selected areas: Teacher Quality We cannot hope for a top quality education system if we staff our schools with second-rate teachers. I am mindful of an anonymous student who said “a school with good teachers will attract other things in time. A school with poor teachers will lose them.” We need a profession full of inspiring, innovative, creative and knowledgeable teachers. I had the benefit of savouring some, such as Mr. Anthony Emovon, my chemistry teacher at St. Malachy’s College, Sapele and Professor S.T. Bajah and Professor Pai Obanya who taught me some higher degree courses at the University of Ibadan. How can we attract such memorable teachers? Quality of teachers is largely dependent on the quality of training (preservice and inservice). We shall discuss reforms in teacher quality at the basic and higher education levels. Basic Education and Senior Secondary The National Commission for Colleges of Education, the National Board for Technical Education and the National Universities Commission are statutorily empowered to set minimum standards for teacher education at the basic and senior secondary education levels. To shore up quality of teachers, the following reforms are proposed: Reduction in the Load of Education Courses Education: courses for those wishing to be subject teachers should be maximum 15% of the total course load. For instance if the total number of units (TNU) for a 4-year degree programme is 120, all Education courses from 100 to 400 level should not exceed a total of 18 units. Interview data from a national survey showed preference for the spread of the 18 units as shown below.

Foundation courses (Psychology, History, Curriculum, Philosophy) = 4

Methodology courses = 8


Teaching practice = 4

Project = 2

Total = 18 Increase in the Load of Teaching Subject Courses: In order to ensure proper grounding of teachers in their subject area, about 80% of the course load should be assigned to courses in the teaching subject(s). Courses that relate to SSCE topics that students find difficult to learn should be made compulsory for the teacher trainees. More Time for Teaching Practice: A minimum of 12 weeks of full contact teaching practice should be implemented for effective preparation of graduate teachers. One one-year teaching practice is ideal. In most colleges of education and universities, in spite of the provision for a 12-week Teaching Practice, actual practice lasts barely three weeks. Supervision is also poor leading to shallow field experience for the teacher trainees. Avoid Early Specialisation: Specialisations at the undergraduate level such as Educational Management/Educational Administration and Planning and Guidance and Counselling should be discontinued in favour of specialisation at the Postgraduate Diploma level. Others:

Broaden the curriculum of research methodology to improve the research project writing skills.

Strengthen and enforce higher weighting to practicals to better equip science education graduates to carryout experimental research and simulations.

Experienced professionals (teachers, principals, and inspectors) should be invited periodically to talk to preservice as this will stimulate and motivate their interest to take more in teaching as a career.

On Student Intake Avoid Admitting Students without five SSCE Credits: The admission requirements should be categorical in excluding candidates who do not have five credit-level passes in the SSCE. In some universities consideration is given to candidates who have three SSCE credits and two NCE merits. This consideration should be scrapped. Limiting the Number of Sandwich/Part-time Students: It has been found that over 60% of the poor quality teachers in the secondary school system are trained through Sandwich/Part-time programmes. In order to improve quality, the number of such candidates admitted into Faculties of Education should be reduced drastically. It is a delight to note that about two months ago, NUC ordered the stoppage of the running of such programmes. I suspect that DELSU was caught up in the NUC order. On Teachers In Colleges Of Education And University Faculties Of Education


Periodic Training in Modern Methods of Teaching: Staff of the Faculty of Education in universities and colleges of education, should be exemplary teachers, yet many are regarded as the worst teachers on campus. They are thus, poor role models for the teacher trainees. All teachers in the Faculty/College of Education should undergo periodic training on modern methods of teaching. Exemplary Dressing and Conduct: Some teachers in the Faculty of Education are careless in dressing. All teachers should be exemplary in dressing and conduct. The Faculty of Education should be a free zone for examination malpractices, sexual harassment and cultism. Higher Education Minimum qualification for teaching: The NUC minimum standard of a PhD for teaching in the Nigerian university system from the Lecturer Grade II position and above, should be embraced and implemented with vigour. All colleges of education and polytechnics aspiring to degree-awarding status should adopt the PhD minimum standard. For others, the policy of not promoting beyond the Principal Lecturer Grade without a PhD is worth considering. Training in pedagogical skills: All higher education teachers without a teaching qualification should be given on-the-job pedagogic training. Regardless of discipline, there should be continued professional development to equip all teachers with skills in modern methods of teaching especially the use of new technologies. The establishment of six pedagogical training centres in the six geo-political zones which was proposed by the 2002 National Summit on Education should be implemented in 2013. Training in Research Skills: Research skills need to be continuously upgraded in the light of the flux in research techniques and modernity of equipment. At least once every two years, all higher education academic staff should have an opportunity for research skill upgrading. Mentoring: Experienced academics are underutilised, especially with regard to nurturing young academics. NCCE, NBTE and NUC should encourage institutions to formulate and implement a sustainable mentoring programme in colleges of education, polytechnics and universities. Teacher Quantity There is an urgent need to double the current rate of teacher production at the basic and higher education levels. This is obviously a tall order given the aversion of candidates for certificates, diplomas and degrees in education. However, through a battery of incentives, enrolment into teacher training institutions at all levels can be bolstered. These incentives include (a) reducing by half the current tuition for training in education in colleges of education, polytechnics and universities; (b) automatic bursary awards for all education students; and (c) enhanced post-graduation salary package for teachers.


A strategy to address the teacher issue, especially in terms of quality and quantity is the Federal Teachers' Scheme. The Scheme, which should be strengthened, was introduced in 2006 to address problems associated with teacher shortage basic education. The Scheme, which is being financed by the Federal Government through the MDG fund, recruits NCE holders into basic education schools. The first batch, enlisted in the November 2006, comprised 40.000 participants teaching in the primary school while 5,000 were enlisted in 2008 for the junior secondary schools to teach Mathematics, Science, Technology and English Language. State and Local Governments are expected to provide additional incentives particularly in the areas of accommodation and transport The Scheme is for a period of two years after which States are expected to absorb the teachers. Teacher Licensing and Revalidation of Licence A licensure system should be established for teachers by the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN). The teacher licence should have a maximum life of life years. Renewal should be based on successful completion of a re-certification examination or evidence of in-service training within the 5-year period. Entrepreneurial education at all levels A key factor in propelling the economy is the promotion of entrepreneurial culture in the citizenry. The education sector provides the platform for inculcating entrepreneurial spirit and the learning experiences for entrepreneurial skill acquisition. While entrepreneurship should be a goal at the basic and higher education levels, it is only at the higher education level, especially the universities that attention is paid to entrepreneurial education. The National Universities Commission has taken giant steps in promoting entrepreneurial education in the universities. While these efforts need to be strengthened, other levels of education should take cue from this lead. At the basic education level, junior secondary students should be given opportunities in school to learn the rudiments of entrepreneurship. Some are engaged in trading activities after school and during the holiday. They can as well be taught as part of the school curriculum to be better in such trading activities. The same proposal applies to senior secondary students. Such students will be better prepared for the entrepreneurial studies programme in universities. The collateral advantage is that they will be busy earning some income and not let loose in the society as jobless miscreants. Colleges of Education should prepare teachers for teaching entrepreneurial studies at the basic education level. The polytechnics and universities should produce graduates in all disciplines who have had entrepreneurial training as part of their certificate, diploma or degree programme. Establishment of a National Quality Assurance and Monitoring System There current exist, pockets of quality assurance agencies with no operational link between any two for the purpose of harmonising minimum standards appropriate for each level of the 6-3-3-4 system. Such linkages are important since the quality of basic education products is important for the senior secondary level. In turn, the quality of senior secondary


products has implication for entrants into the universities, polytechnics and colleges of education. The acerbic comments and complaints about quality of products from secondary schools by higher education practitioners will be diminished if there is a National Quality Assurance and Monitoring System that can synchronise minimum standards across the system. The elements making up the system will be the Inspectorate Service at the State and Federal levels, NUC, NBTE, and NCCE. The statutory quality assurance functions of the different agencies will not be thinned down by this arrangement. The strength of the arrangement will be in the component elements learning from one another and collaborating in monitoring, system-wide, rather than in individual cocoons of their sub-sector. When the Director of Inspectorate in Kaduna State is an observer in the NUC accreditation exercise of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria or NCCE accreditation of programmes at the Federal College of Education, Zaria, he/she will better appreciate the quality demand for higher education from the secondary school system. Reciprocally, NUC, NBTE and NCCE officials, by this arrangement, should participate in secondary school inspection on a random selection basis. From this team, the Ministry of Education will receive facts-based advice from the higher education sub-sector on how best to prepare students for post-secondary experience. Access to university education First, we must set a national goal indicating our higher education participation rate (HEPR). In simple terms, HEPR is the proportion of eligible population who have access to higher education. Africa’s higher education participation rate is currently 10% while in the United States and Europe it hovers around 50-60%. South Africa is 18% with a plan to push it to 20% by 2012; Britain has set 50% as its HEPR. Data computed from UNESCO Institute of Statistics sources put our HEPR at about 8%. Nigeria should set 20% as a target to be met by 2020. To meet the 20% target, we need to achieve at least 10% annual growth in enrolment. The solution, however, is not to admit many more students into the present under-resourced universities. By doing so, we shall end up with degree mills and depressed quality of graduates. The solution is a planned and phased expansion with six major components. This year, about 800,000 candidates will fail to secure admission in Nigerian universities in spite of the 124 universities (37 federal; 37 state; and 50 private). Working on the premise that about 60% will be suitably qualified, we shall have a large army of about 500,000 roaming the streets after the 2011/2012 UTME admission season. An annual 8-9% increase in the number of candidates who take the UTME will translate into millions who are not able to gain admission, few years down the road. The attendant societal problems off-shooting from this ‘mark-time’ phenomenon are enormous. What options do we have? I turn next to how the university system can respond to the challenge of increased access to quality university education. One component is to embark on massive upgrading of physical facilities in existing universities to take in at least additional 1,000 students per year. This will involve more classrooms, laboratories, workshops, library and offices. Staff recruitment in the quantity and quality to match the annual growth in student enrolment should be undertaken. Hence,


with successful scaling of NUC due diligence on the expanded facilities and increased human resources, carrying capacity is increased to 1000. The university can, thereafter, proceed to enrol additional 1000 students during the next admission season. In ten years, a typical university would have added about 10,000 students to its baseline stock. In terms of cost per university, this option translates to an annual average of N900 million for building, equipment and staffing. In ten years, each university will require N9 billion for the expansion project. The long and short of the story is that if we desire 10% annual increase in enrolment in the nation’s universities, we will require N837 billion in ten years. Having added about one million spaces in ten years through the expansion project of existing universities, the second component of the plan is to add 300,000 more spaces through a gradual increase in the number of universities. Thirty additional universities can be licensed in 10 years by NUC. Fifteen of these should be under private proprietorship and the other fifteen will emerge from upgrades of selected polytechnics and colleges of education to degree-awarding institutions. The third component is to strengthen the National Open University of Nigeria to be able to take in many more eligible students in the region of about 200,000 in ten years. Thus, in ten years, the Nigerian university system would have expanded to almost triple its present enrolment capacity. This will put a smile on the faces of seekers of university admission and bolstered the country’s higher education participation rate. The fourth component of the plan is to implement the recommendation of the 2002 National Summit on Higher Education, approved by the Federal Executive Council on the re-introduction of the Higher School Certificate (HSC). HSC will serve as the holding bay for the teeming products of the senior secondary school and the filter for the academically able students. It will be the cauldron for cooking the students into physical, emotional and intellectual maturity. The 25-30% that will scale the HSC hurdle will comfortably be absorbed by the expanded university system. The fifth component of the plan is to cream the top from high performers in the Senior School Certificate Examination. Rather than open the gates of the universities to 400,000 candidates with 5 credit-level passes at two sittings, we demand that the 5 credits be obtained at just one sitting. This is combined with excellent performance in the post-UTME screening exercise. Calculations using 2006 data showed that the number of eligible candidates can be sliced by half. We, therefore, have 200,000 candidates to place rather than 400,000. The resultant will be better quality students as raw materials into our universities and hopefully, better quality graduates. The sixth component of the plan is to make polytechnic education and teacher education programmes in colleges of education attractive to candidates. This will ease the pressure on universities. Equivalence granted HND with Bachelor’s degree holders and the implementation of the Teachers Salary Scale are some of the strategies that will make polytechnics and colleges of education attractive to candidates. Future of Entrepreneurial Education and Agenda for Action


The question to which our attention should now turn is: what does the future hold for entrepreneurial studies in higher education in Nigeria? So long as we instil an enduring entrepreneurial attitude in our youth, the future of entrepreneurial studies will keep lustring. This attitude endures in a climate where hard work in setting up a business is rewarded; and where the environment for setting up business is comforting. The air is pervaded by the unsettling view held by many youths that they are bidding time to take over national governance and steal as much money as the elders are now stealing. The entreaty to work hard to earn income through honest public and private sector engagements typically falls on deaf ears. Our universities should explore methodologies to modify this negative behaviour and attitude. With a virile entrepreneurial studies programme in place, our youth will be more gainfully employed and the propensity for “419”, drug pedalling, child trafficking and robbery, significantly diminish. Having described where we are with regard to entrepreneurial education and where should be through learning from global best practices, what should then be an agenda for improvement? I offer some suggestions as follows: Establish a National Entrepreneurial Education Framework: A rallying point for all activities in entrepreneurial education should be the national entrepreneurial education framework. This specifies the national philosophy, objectives and implementation scheme for the programme sector-wide. Today, the focus is on higher education. This is patchwork as we have left the lower levels of education out of the picture. Yet, entrepreneurial education is typically kindled at the secondary level. The Presidency, through the Federal Ministry of Education should expand the frontier of entrepreneurial education delivery beyond higher education. A broad-based national committee on entrepreneurial education is proposed. The National Council on Education should setup this committee with federal and state actors as members. Approach: two approaches to entrepreneurial education were described earlier as playing out as best practice in Europe and North America. These are the focussed and the radiant. It is proposed that a blended or mixed model should be adopted by Nigerian universities. While entrepreneurship education may be perceived by some to be a unique discipline for entrepreneurship students only, the majority of the leading entrepreneurial institutions regard entrepreneurship as a generic tool that teaches students to identify opportunities and develop management skills regardless of their educational background. The Covenant University, University of Ibadan and University of Ilorin models are worth adopting. Curriculum: The curriculum should be laden with practical concepts in entrepreneurship. It should focus on the development of enterprise that will rapidly grow the Nigerian economy. It should not just be about soap making, barbing and fashion design but about those small and medium scale businesses that are related to areas of top economic priority of Nigeria e.g. power, manufacturing and agriculture. While there should be a general entrepreneurial studies curriculum for the university of the GNS type, every department should sprinkle entrepreneurial topics into relevant courses. The University of Ibadan model is an example.


How is implementation of an entrepreneurial curriculum best served? We note that the curriculum consists of topics to be taught, methodology of delivering and evaluating content and the resources for quality delivery. For our universities, NUC has set minimum standards for entrepreneurial education and it is gladdening that most universities have infused these into their programme offering. However, there is a broad spectrum of methodologies that universities are currently deploying for implementing the curriculum ranging from mere lip service to exemplary models of delivery. A quick scan of the landscape shows that University of University of Ibadan, University of Ilorin and Pan-African provide examples at the positive end of the spectrum. In packaging entrepreneurial education, and in order not to overload students, it is worth suggesting that a university should cut down on courses with marginal significance to provide needed space for entrepreneurial education in the curriculum. An internship programme of one semester should be compulsory for all students. The overall idea is to narrow the gap between the intended entrepreneurial education curriculum and the implemented and achieved. The intended curriculum is the document called “entrepreneurial education curriculum” Senate approved using the NUC minimum standards as basis. The implemented curriculum is the component of the intended curriculum that is actually implemented in the real world of classrooms and field experiences. Typically, a gap exists between the intended and the implemented through inability to cover all the topics in the intended curriculum and provide the full regime of knowledge, attitudes, values and skills envisioned in the Senate-approved curriculum. What students finally take out of the implemented curriculum is referred to as the achieved curriculum. Typically also, there is a gap between what the students are taught (implemented) and what they finally soak in months and years after the course is over (the achieved curriculum). How can these gaps be narrowed? What model of implementation will best assure success? A few suggestions will now be offered. On approval by Senate of the entrepreneurial education curriculum, one of the early steps is not to rush to mount the course but to advance on a few preliminary steps. A university-wide committee should be assigned the duty of preparing a 5-year implementation strategic plan. On approval of the plan, a one-month university-wide orientation should be conducted for staff and students from the level of the department all the way through the Faculty to the university. One other early step is to train teachers and other human resources to implement the programme and of course, put in place the minimum infrastructure. Thereafter, rather than run the programme all at once involving all departments, a pilot run is advisable. The pilot experience with one Faculty should be conducted for one semester and a detailed report emphasising lessons learned, submitted to Senate. On correcting observed deficiencies in the pilot run, a university-wide implementation is then activated. As the implementation of the programme progresses, monitoring and evaluation should play key roles. A special committee made up of members internal and external to the university should provide monthly feedback to Senate. Such external persons should be drawn from the pool of successful entrepreneurs. The intensity of engagement of the committee diminishes over time, as the programme gains firmer foothold.


The index of how well the programme is successful, that is the achieved curriculum, is the number of successful entrepreneurs the university records from among its graduates. There are several small-scale businesses within the university and its environs. A policy which encourages about 20% of such businesses to be owned or managed by former students should be considered. Such businesses as cybercafé, restaurants, business centres, dry cleaning, security and electronic and electrical maintenance workshops thrive and former students, indeed current students should put their theoretical knowledge of entrepreneurial education into practice. Methodology of delivery: We should deliver entrepreneurial education in a manner that will be enticing for students and productive enough to yield dividends of setting up small businesses at the end of the training. As the National Agency for Enterprise and Construction (2004) noted, the involvement of practitioners is important both in making practical experience available to students and in introducing students to experienced practitioners. The use of guest lecturers will undoubtedly help students embrace “learning by doing.” The use of guest lecturers may be supplemented by involving teachers with an entrepreneurial record in the university. Surely, many lecturers in Lagos, Kano, Port Harcourt, Benin and Kaduna and in major cities, have their private businesses (albeit unknown to the authorities). Such lectures are better equipped to be part of the entrepreneurial studies teaching pool. The level of ongoing relations with the business community is critical in providing students with hands-on experience. This may be facilitated by courses where students are physically located in a company on a regular basis, or courses where business employees bring real-life experience to the classroom. It may also involve business representatives that offer valuable counsel, or students being engaged in analysing marketing activities and organisational framework. The use of role models in entrepreneurship education is vital in fostering an entrepreneurial mind set. Role models may be promoted through lectures and awards and is important in supporting an entrepreneurial culture. Role models are instrumental in instilling a positive image of entrepreneurs among all students. NUC should commission videos of successful entrepreneurs for distribution to universities as part of materials for implementing the entrepreneurial studies programme. Funding: What are some possible funding sources for implementing the programme? The university should make respectable budgetary provision of about a third of the sum needed while sources such as grants from development partners and Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETF) harnessed to make up the rest. The creation of a Graduate Job Creation Fund by government is endearing from where universities can seek additional funding support. The World Bank is currently intervening through the STEP-B project. Surely, a special facility to support entrepreneurial education in our universities will be welcome. The Federal Government through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, should make available a special take-off grant of N100 million for entrepreneurial education in all Nigerian universities.


Partnerships: The importance of partnership in the successful implementation of entrepreneurial education should be stressed. Partnership with the National Directorate of Employment is one of such important links. Neighbouring universities also need to partner to share resources. University of Port Harcourt could be the hub of the linkage among universities in the South-South zone. The demand on each university in the conglomerate lightens with such arrangement as human and material resources are shared. Entrepreneurship Observatory: Universities should set up an observatory for scanning businesses that worthwhile in their vicinity and where funds can be sourced to support startup businesses by students. Gender issues: Special attention should be paid to the needs of women and girls in the university in entrepreneurship. Aside from this being in the spirit of affirmative action of the Jonathan Administration, about 40% of the enrolment in the Nigerian university system is female. This is a sizeable group that should not be neglected. Implementation of the Action Plan: As advised by Uwani (2010), there is a need to implement the entrepreneurial education Action Plan especially in the following areas: conduct national assessment of entrepreneurial education resources and estimate training needs for professors lecturers; use “Train-the-Trainer” approach to broaden and multiply requisite critical mass of lecturers in selected institutions; develop students handbook and instructions manual; establish National Entrepreneurship Resource and Knowledge Centre at NUC; create national and international network of entrepreneurship educators/practitioners by supporting the Association of Entrepreneurship Educators; establish an organization (framework) for running annual national entrepreneurship competition and venture capital fairs; and establish and equip a unit in the FME capable of overseeing implementation, management, and monitoring & evaluation of the programme across the nation’s higher education institutions in collaboration with the HEIRAs. DELSU, entrepreneurship and human security After the broad discussion on the linkages among education, entrepreneurship and human security, we should now “end charity at home” by discussing how DELSU can deliver entrepreneurial education in a manner that will enhance the brand of its graduates, boost the economy of Delta State and lift the human security profile of the State. Entrepreneurial education in DELSU has just been approved by Senate and a Director appointed. This provides the university a good opportunity to learn from those universities who have walked on the entrepreneurship road and to strive to do better through innovative practices. Being unaware of the programme approved by Senate, I suspect my proposal may have been addressed. The key elements of the proposal which is a blend of five models from Pan African University, Lagos, University of Ibadan, University of Ilorin, Babson University (USA) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA) are as follows: Teaching


All the courses in the NUC BMAS for entrepreneurial studies should be offered by all undergraduates (compulsory for all universities).

In addition to the standalone entrepreneurial studies curriculum, every course offered in the university should, as much as possible, have topics reflecting entrepreneurship (Ibadan model). For instance a 200-level course in microbiology can have “Running a brewery business” and “Maintaining hygiene and eliminating dangerous microbes in a business environment” as topics included in the course. To ensure the actualisation of this plan, a university-wide workshop for all course lecturers should be organised to guide staff in the infusion of topics on entrepreneurship into their courses.

The practical component of entrepreneurship should be given accent in the delivery of the curriculum (MIT and Babson College model). A 70:30 practical to theory ratio is proposed. The financial implication of this ratio is not lost especially for a university like DELSU that is grappling with meeting its basic funding needs. The phased setup of a comprehensive entrepreneurship centre over a five-year period using funds from TETFund and a sprinkle from internally-generated revenue is worth considering. If oil companies doing business in Delta do not complain of donor fatigue, such organisations can be approached for support with a good proposal in hand.

All undergraduate final-year projects should be of two types- a feasibility report on a proposed business in their place of residence and a toned down form of the traditional project . The observation that over 70% of the latter are plagiarised is fuelling the call for the reformatting of undergraduate projects.

Research and Development

The Faculties of Administration, Agriculture, Education, Engineering and Social Sciences as well as the College of Medicine should insert into their research agenda, studies on threats to human security in Delta State and provide recommendations for mitigation. The scope should be broad ranging to cover all elements of human security, including but not limited to agriculture, health, education, environment, armed robbery, cultism, kidnapping, terrorism and energy. The DELSU consortium of researchers emerging from this arrangement should undertake an in-depth and comprehensive study of the security challenges facing Delta State with a view to advising government on solutions that if implemented, will make Delta the most secure State in Nigeria.

The Faculty of Social Sciences should undertake a mapping of business opportunities in towns and villages in Delta State with a view to guiding DELSU students in their choice of small businesses.

The university should organise annual entrepreneurship fairs where students will showcase their feasibility reports and small businesses. The private sector invited to


such fairs may support further development of the small businesses. It is however not in the habit of the private sector in Nigeria to offer such support. With better packaging by the students and the university, the DELSU products may be able to break the support jinx (Ibadan, Ilorin, Babson College and MIT models).

Community service/commercial ventures

For a fee, DELSU should mount courses in entrepreneurship for mechanics, plumbers, masons, electricians and other enterprises as well as business management for owners of small ventures around the campuses of the university (University of Ibadan model).

Establishment of mentoring service with reputable entrepreneurs in Nigeria and elsewhere in the world and the development of a strong working relationship with the business community (Pan African University model).

Support the operation by students of small ventures such as restaurants, business centres, barbing and hair dressing salons around the school. The cost of service should be modest so that the local community can benefit from being neighbours to the university.

Some student-owned businesses should be supported through incubation (University of Ibadan model).

Establish the DELSU Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer office for stimulating innovation, registration of patents and copyrights and working out the process of technology transfer (University of Ibadan model).

Establish the DELSU-Business circle where students and staff interact with entrepreneurs in the different Chambers of Commerce and Industry and Association of Small Scale industrialists. From this platform, there is experience-sharing and capacity building (University of Ibadan model).

Concluding remarks Education, it is often said, cannot solve all of society's problems, but without it no solution is possible. It is in this context that we reviewed in this lecture, the direct linkage of education with the promotion of human security and its indirect linkage through entrepreneurship. We discussed human security in its broadest form to go beyond security of lives and property to include all elements that will guarantee freedom from fear and freedom from want. We scanned the practice of entrepreneurial education in Nigeria and proposed a model for DELSU. The high and low points in education in Nigeria did not escape our gaze to set the stage for the proposals for improvement.


On reading through the initial draft of this paper, one of my postgraduate students grinned and firmly expressed his doubt that all my suggestions will pick up dust as others before them since quoting her “nobody cares about implementing any good thing in Nigeria”. He further asserted that “it is not that people do not know what is right, they simply do not care”. This now brings me to the last-but-one word in this paper- political will. Without this factor all these and other proposals will be "a tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Now to the final word which is to the students. I congratulate the 2006/2007 to 2010/2011 sets on their graduation. Be proud holders of the DELSU certificate. Although many in the early sets would have been working or completed their higher degrees, you all should continue in the DELSU tradition of excellence in all that you do. Your watchwords should be honesty, diligence and fear of God. I congratulate all staff for the good training you offered the students. I am sure you will be happy when you run into these students in the future as President of Nigeria, Governor of a State, Vice-Chancellor of a university, Director-General of a UN agency or head of a private sector conglomerate and they say “Sir/Ma, you were my teacher in DELSU”. In all of these, we give all the glory to God, the I AM THAT I AM and as the Prince of Peace, we pray him to give us peace and security in our land. Congratulations again and may God continue to bless your efforts. References Akinkugbe, O.O. (2010). Health and Human Security in Africa: The Role of Non-Communicable

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Montreal: UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Uwani, Y. (2010). The development of entrepreneurial education in Nigerian higher education

institutions. Paper presented at the Essex Seminar on Entrepreneurial Education.


APPENDIX 1

Table 1: Accreditation history of DELSU

Year Total Number of Denied Accreditation Status

Total Number of Interim Accreditation Status

Total Number of Full Accreditation Status

Total Number of Programmes Accredited

1990 - - -

1999/2000 1 35 - 36

2002 8 7 - 15

2005 - 24 31 55

2006 - 1 - 1

2007 4 13 13 30

2008 - - 2 2

2009 1 12 6 19

2010 - 1 - 1

2011 - - - -

2012 2 1 40 43

NUC Approved Programmes of Delta State University, Abraka ADMINISTRATION AND MANAGEMENT Business Administration Marketing AGRICULTURE Agriculture Fisheries Forest and Wildlife ARTS English Language & Literary Studies French History & International Studies Linguistics/Urhobo Music Religious Studies Theatre Arts BASIC MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES Anatomy Nursing Science Pharmacology and Therapeutics


Physiology EDUCATION Education/Agric. Science Education/Biology Education/Business Education Education/Chemistry Education/Economics Education/English Education/Fine Arts Education/French Education/Geography Education/History Education/Integrated science Education/Mathematics Education/Music Education/Physical Education Education/Physics Education/Political Science Education/Technical Education Educational Administration and Management Guidance & Counselling Library & Information Science Physical and Health Education Social Studies ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY Chemical Engineering Civil Engineering Electrical, Electronics and Computer Engineering Mechanical and Metallurgical Engineering Petroleum Engineering ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES Fine and Applied Arts LAW Law MEDICINE Medicine and Surgery PHARMACY Pharmacy SCIENCES Biochemistry Botany Geology


Industrial Mathematics Mathematics/Computer Science Microbiology Physics Science Laboratory Technology Zoology SOCIAL SCIENCES Economics Geography and Regional Planning Mass Communication Political Science Sociology


ACCREDIDATION HISTORY OF DELTA STATE UNIVERSITY

S/N Programmes 1990 1999/2000 2002 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Maturity

Date

ADMINISTRATION

1 Accounting

Denied Interim

Interim

Interim

Interim (B/B) Denied

2 Accounting and Finance

Interim

Interim

Denied

-

3 Banking and Finance

Denied Denied Interim

Full

2012

4 Business Administration

Denied Interim

Full

2012

5 Marketing

Denied Interim

Full

2012

AGRICULTURE

1 Agriculture

Interim Interim

Denied

Interim

Full 2017

2 Forestry & Wild Life

Denied Interim

Denied

Interim

Full 2017

3 Fisheries

Interim

Interim

Denied

Full

2014

ARTS

1 Religious Studies

Interim

Interim

Interim

Full

2014

2 English Language & Literary Studies

Denied Full

Full 2017

3 French

Denied Full

Full 2017


4 Linguistics & Urhobo

Full

Interim

Full 2017

5 Music

Interim

Full

Full 2017

6 Theatre Arts

Interim Full

Full 2017

7 Urhobo

Interim

Full

2014

8 History & International Studies

Interim

Interim

Interim

Full

2014

EDUCATION

1 Agriculture Science Education

Full 2017

2 Educational Administration & Policy

Full

2010

3 Guidance & Counseling

Interim

Full

2013

4 Library & Information Science

Interim

Full

2013

5 Physical & Health Education

Interim Full

Full 2017

6 Religious Studies

Interim

Interim

Interim

Full 2017

7 Technical Education

Interim

Full

2010

8 Business Education

Interim

Full

Full 2017

9 Biology Education

Interim

Full

Full 2017

10 Chemistry Education

Interim

Full

Full 2017

11 Computer Science Education

Interim

Full

Full 2017

12 Economics Education

Interim

Full

Full 2017

13 Geography Education

Interim

Full

Full 2017

14 Health Education

Interim

Full

Full 2017


15 Home Economics Education Interim

Full

Full 2017

16 Integrated Science Education Interim

Full

Full 2017

17 Mathematics Education

Interim

Full

Full 2017

18 Physics Education

Interim

Full

Interim 2014

19 Political Science Education Interim

Full

Full 2017

20 Social Studies Education

Interim

Full

Full 2017

21 Technical Education

Interim

Full

Full 2017

22 English Education

Interim

Full

Full 2017

23 Fine Arts Education

Interim

Full

Full 2017

24 French Education

Interim

Full

Full 2017

25 History Education

Interim

Full

Full 2017

26 Music Education

Interim

Full

Full 2017

27 Nursing & Primary Education

Full 2017

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

1 Fine and Applied Arts

Interim Interim

Interim

Full

2014

LAW

1 Law

Interim

Interim

Full

2012

MEDICINE

1 Medicine

Full

Full 2017

2 Anatomy

Full

2012

3 Medical Biochemistry

Interim

Full 2017

4 Physiology

Interim

Full 2017

5 Nursing Science

Interim

Full 2017


PHARMACY

1 Pharmacy

Interim

2012

2 Pharmacology and Therapeutics

Interim

Full 2017

SCIENCE

1 Biochemistry

Interim

Interim

Denied

Full

2014

2 Botany

Interim

Full

Full 2017

3 Industrial Mathematics

Interim

Interim

Full 2017

4 Industrial Chemistry

Interim

Interim

Full 2017

5 Chemistry

Interim

Interim

Full 2017

6 Geology

Denied

Full

2012

7 Mathematics/Computer

Interim Full

Full 2017

8 Computer Science

Interim

Interim

Interim

Interim (B/B) Denied

2011

9 Microbiology

Interim

Full

Full 2017

10 Physics

Interim Interim

Full

2012

11 Zoology

Interim

Interim

Full

2012

ENGINEERING

1 Chemical Engineering

Interim

2011

2 Civil & Environmental Engineering

Interim

2011

3 Electrical/Electronic Engineering

Interim

2011


4 Mechanical/Metallurgical & Production Engineering

Interim

2011

5 Petroleum & Gas Engineering

Interim

2011

SOCIAL SCIENCES

1 Economics

Interim

Interim

Full

2012

2 Mass Communication

Interim

Full

2012

3 Political Science

Interim

Interim

Full

2012

4 Geography & Regional Plan.

Interim

Interim

Full

2012

5 Sociology

Interim

Interim

Full

2012


Professor Peter OKEBUKOLA, OFR

Profile Professor Peter Okebukola was born in Ilesa on February 17, 1951. He had his secondary education in St. Malachy’s College, Sapele and his higher education at the University of Ibadan where he obtained his Bachelor’s degree in 1973 followed by Master’s and Ph.D degrees in Science Education in the same university. He had specialised training at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), and Harvard University, both in Cambridge, USA. He now specialises in science, computer and environmental education. He serves on a number of international organisations as Consultant including UNESCO, UNICEF, The World Bank and the UNDP. He is currently the Executive President of UNESCO’s African Network for Innovations in Higher Education. In addition, Professor Okebukola is noted as the First African to win the prestigious UNESCO Prize for the Communication of Science, the First African Fellow and Member of the Board of Directors of the International Academy of Education whose membership is restricted to distinguished professors of education in the world, and the first African Member of the Executive Board of the International Association for Research in Science Teaching. He is a Fellow of the Science Association of Nigeria as well as Fellow and Past President of the Science Teachers Association of Nigeria and the National Association for Environmental Education. He has won several international gold medals in science and computer education and he is the Editor of or in the Editorial Board of 18 international journals. His research efforts have gravitated around five central themes - computers in education and e-learning, co-operative learning, metacognitive strategies in science education, environmental education, and eco-cultural influences on the learning of science concepts. These efforts have resulted in over 190 internationally published works and over 200 national and international conference presentations. Many of his publications can be found in the world’s top 10 science education, computer education and environmental education journals. He is the immediate past Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission. He has been Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council of several universities including Osun State University and currently Chairman of Council of Crawford University. He has been awarded a number of honorary D.Sc degrees. He is the Executive Chairman of Okebukola Science Foundation which supports quality teaching, learning and research in science and technology. He is the recipient of the National Honour of the Officer of the Order of the Federal Republic- OFR. He is back in Lagos State University where he was Acting Vice-Chancellor 17 years ago and now having exciting time teaching his students and supervising postgraduate studies in the Department of Science and Technology Education.

education, human security and entrepreneurship

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