LASPOTECH trains 14,000 student entrepreneurs in three years

No fewer than 14,000 students of Lagos State Polytechnic (LASPOTECH) participated in various vocational endeavours in the past three years.

Mr Ademola Aderogba, Director, Center for Entrepreneurship and Skills Acquisition, LASPOTECH told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Monday.

“The training has been going on in the institution for about eight years now. It was created to curb the problem of unemployment in the country thus making youths, job employers rather than job seekers.

“The training comes in theoretical and practical aspects but due to lack of buildings and materials for training the students, an alternative to practical was implemented.

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“We put our students in groups; they discuss what they want to do and the one with more knowledge puts all of them through,’’ he said.

Aderogba added that through the help of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), the institution was able to get assistance for infrastructure for practical training.

He, however, said it was difficult to measure how well students had acquired skills because of the vast knowledge of a few of them.

“Most times, they do projects in groups and the best student may be the one to lead the group. That way, we do not know which student needs more training and those that are professionals.

“We have about 28 skills in this centre including tailoring and fashion, catering, leather work, performing arts, music, photography, bags and shoemaking, plumbing, events planning, food processing amongst others.

“Students can choose from a wide range of these skills because we have facilitators for each one,” he said.

He also added that the courses were open to the public because one of the objectives of the centre was to impact immediate and neighbouring communities.

“We have made it compulsory for our students to learn any entrepreneurship skill. We enforced it because some of the students believe there are jobs in the labour market.

“Grades are attached to the courses so the students do not have an option but to work hard and show what they have done at the end of the semester.

“Even those doing music must have a track to produce and showcase, we have needed equipment made available for them to work with. I encourage students to see entrepreneurship as another source of income.

“You can choose to work in a bank and have a business by the side giving you multiple sources of income.

“We work with Lagos State Trust Fund and once we can identify good students, we recommend them to be assisted financially to start their businesses,’’ Aderogba said.