Marcus Wauschkuhn, Head of Cluster, Sustainable Economic Development, GIZ Nigeria
The Lagos State Government says its partnership with the German Agency for International Corporation (GIZ-SEDIN) is to raise student entrepreneurs in the state.
Ms Adetola Salau, the Senior Special Assistant to the state government on Education, said this at a media parley organised by GIZ-SEDIN, on Tuesday in Lagos.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the partnership is to promote the Students Entrepreneurship Activity-Hub (SEA-Hub) under the umbrella of GIZ-SEDIN.
Soap Making by Alimosho Senior Grammar School, Lagos SEA-Hub.
Speaking at the media parley, Salau said that student entrepreneurs under the project were regarded as managers of their small businesses within the schools in three local government areas of the state- Alimosho, Agege and Ifako-Ijaiye, known as the District 1.
Salau said she considered the skills and trainings the students got from the project as life-changing skills that would become a source of income providers to them and their communities.
According to her, employment rate will also reduce as the students will not be stuck in the labour market because they will be employers themselves after school.
Abesan Senior Grammar School SEA-Hub Studio
“They have acquired the skills to be able to provide and apply the knowledge that they have to take care of challenges around them.
“We created these entrepreneurship clubs in 24 schools, both in junior and senior secondary schools and there were a lot of training programmes for both the teachers and the students.
“The main focus of this programme is to make sure that our students are able to fish for themselves.Teachers, GIZ-SEDIN Team and Students of SEA-Hub Programme, Alimosho Senior Grammar School, Lagos.
“It is one thing to constantly keep on waiting for people to give you what you need, but another thing to be able to go and get what you need yourself and say you know what, I am a self-providing human being.
“Which is what a programme like this actually consists of, and I am really happy about the success that we have been able to record since the programme rolled out in the state last year,” she said.
The special adviser also said that plans were underway to scale the project to four other LGAs as the platform would afford students to be creative and visionary.
“I am looking at our students becoming more creative, critical thinkers and becoming people who will be innovate and look at the challenges and say, instead of me complaining and waiting for government, let me start solving these things myself,” she added.
Salau commended GIZ-SEDIN and urged more corporates to replicate such initiatives around education in the state.
Marcus Wauschkuhn, Head of Cluster, Sustainable Economic Development, GIZ Nigeria, said SEA-Hub is an intervention funded by the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by GIZ.
Wauschkuhn said the Economic Education Entrepreneurship component of our activities led to the conception of SEA-Hub, which is helping school students to develop entrepreneurial skills to enable them become self-reliant.
He said that so far, the SEA-Hub intervention had reached 30,000 students in Edo, Niger, Ogun, Plateau, Oyo, Abia, Kano, Kaduna, Kebbi and recently Lagos.
“Lack of employment represents a serious challenge for the Nigerian economy as about 44 per cent of the working age population are either unemployed, underemployed, or have retracted from the labour market,” he said.
He said that it had become difficult for young people to find full and productive employment as well as decent work as 60 per cent of the population live below the poverty line.
A Graduate of SEA-Hub
“While Miicro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs) provide for 84 per cent of employment and 50 per cent of economic growth, inadequate framework conditions and entrepreneurial skills as well as lack of access to financial services, constrain their sustainable growth,” Wauschkuhn said.
According to him, the media parley is a build up to the national SEA-Hub competition which will serve as an opportunity for young people to be part of nation-building and begin to reimagine the future they deserve.
Mrs Olawaiye Oladoyin, Component Lead, Economic Education and Entrepreneurship GIZ-SEDIN, while giving an overview of the programme, said students set up weekly co-curricular SEA-Hub club meetings.
She noted that over 300 SEA-Hub graduIates currently run their personal businesses.
After the media parley, there was a tour of SEA-Hub centers in Alimosho Senior Grammar School and Abesan Senior High School.
The students showcased their wears ranging from footwears, handbags, peanuts, piggy banks made from recycled plastics, plantain chips, soaps and insecticides among others, which they started with little or no capital and profits got after sales were plunged back into the business.
SEA-Hub is a Pro-Poor Growth and Promotion of Employment in Nigeria Programme (SEDAN) implemented by GIZ to introduce basic entrepreneurship training for secondary schools.
Piloted in Niger State in 2016, it is currently being implemented in Niger, Ogun, Plateau, Edo, Lagos, Yobe, Kaduna, Delta, Imo, Osun and Oyo states.
NAN
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