Institutions charged to embrace vocational entrepreneurial education, Acadoprenuership

Institutions have been urged to prepare their students to be innovative, responsible citizens who contribute to their nations’ economic development and as well embrace Vocational and Entrepreneurial Education (VEE) which plays an important role in the process.

Stating this was the vice chancellor of the Summit University, Offa, Kwara State, Professor Musa Abiodun Aibinu, in his lecture as a keynote speaker at 2022 STEEM(Science, Technology, Engineering, Environmental and Management) national conference organised by the Faculty of Engineering, The Polytechnic, Ibadan.

The theme of the conference was ‘Vocational and Entrepreneurial:Strategic Approach to Unemployment and Insecurity in Nigeria.’

According to Professor Aibinu, who was represented by the team leader of the Advanced Engineering Innovation Research Group, Dr Abiodun Folorunsho, “vocational and entrepreneurship education is one of the areas of education that contributes the most to the training of skilled labour, providing both the young and adults with the information needed to ply a trade.”

He, however, noted that “this aspect of education, which supports entrepreneurship and vocational development, is facing many challenges to prepare a sufficient number of people with the right skills to meet the labour market demands.”

Aibinu hinted that “over 21 million youths are unemployed in Nigeria today; while young people between the ages of 15 and 34 have the  highest unemployment rate,” adding also that “about 2.9 million of  the unemployed Nigerians hold graduate or post-graduate degrees from tertiary institutions.”

As a result of this, he said Nigeria is being plagued by a surge in cybercrime, armed robbery, kidnapping, domestic crime, extrajudicial killings, herder-farmer conflicts, ritual killings and banditry.

He advocated that VEE should be intensified at the primary, secondary, and tertiary education levels, so that the youths, through it could be equipped with the occupational skills and competencies required for effective participation in economic growth.

He stressed the need for the VEE tutors/trainers as well to be mobilised, motivated and re-trained for them to understand the impact of their collective efforts and responsibilities in the running of such training programmes.

In order to achieve all of these, the don, recommended that one vibrant approach to improving VEE implementation in Nigeria is to implement a concept known as ‘Acadopreneurship,’ saying that this entails turning academic and research outputs into business ventures.

“This can be accomplished through an ongoing collaboration and immersion programmes between academic institutions and industries in the pursuit of transforming academic outputs into sustainable businesses and start-up ventures.”

If this model is successfully implemented, he noted that “graduates from tertiary institutions would no longer rely on the government for employment opportunities, but will instead have the drive, creativity and innovation to transform their knowledge and skills into sustainable firms.

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The lead paper presenter at the conference, Dr Olusola Ayoola, who is also the founder of Robotics & Artificial Intelligence Nigeria (RAIN), said that there are lots of potential in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) yet to be tapped in Nigeria.

According to him, in spite of the immense benefits that can be derived from Robotics and AI research as well as its development and deployment, there are obstacles preventing its widespread adoption at the national level.

He, therefore, noted that “there is need for a deliberate funding for training, research and projects that seek to utilise robotics and AI for tackling insecurity in the county and a healthy collaboration between research institutions, private engineering firms and the government.

The rector of the institution, represented by his deputy, Mrs Olubunmi Ademakinwa thanked the faculty of Engineering of the institution for organising the conference at such a time as this, saying that the theme of the conference was apt and timely.