A call has gone out to education policy makers and curriculum planners in the country to integrate entrepreneurial training in educational curricula as this will help in combating the menace of unemployment in the Nigerian society.
The vice chancellor, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Professor Eyitope Ogunbodede; and a former deputy vice chancellor at the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Professor Rasaq Olatunde Kalilu, made the call last week as chief host and guest lecturer respectively at the 50 + 1 Solo Art Exhibition and Lecture tagged, ‘My Attempt’, staged by Dr. Lanre Idowu of the Department of Educational Technology, Faculty of Education, OAU, Ile-Ife.
Ogunbodede disclosed that OAU was in the process of a complete overhaul of the curricula of its various programmes to include entrepreneurial training with special focus on reduction of the rate of unemployment among university graduates in Nigeria.
He also disclosed plans by his administration to reposition the university and make it 21st century-compliant by ensuring that its graduates acquire entrepreneurial training before the end of their stay on campus.
Ogunbodede also disclosed that beginning from the next academic session, an art gallery would be opened for the Department of Fine Arts so that revenue accruing to the department from the gallery could be used to maintain the department.
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Addressing art enthusiasts, collectors, as well as invited guests to the exhibition, Professor Kalilu explored the connection between fine arts and entrepreneurship in his lecture, submitting that there is no discipline or human endeavour that does not make use of the tenets and principles of fine part.
While admonishing his audience to embrace visual art because of the numerous entrepreneurial trainings inherent in it, Kalilu emphasised that it could be used to empower many people, adding that security challenges would abate when people are engaged gainfully.
He called on government to collaborate with corporate organizations and other private individuals already running periodic entrepreneurial skill acquisition programmes in order to widen the scope and extend the programmes to more people in the interest of the peace and security of the society.
Earlier, the exhibitor, Dr. Lanre Idowu, while welcoming guests to the event had appreciated them for making out time to attend the exhibition.
He encouraged secondary school pupils present to pick interest in entrepreneurial education skills like fine arts as a subject, lamenting that there had been an abysmal enrolment in fine arts at post-primary level.
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