Posted by From UBONG UKPONG, Abuja on
The Federal Government says it has secured the sum of 180 million dollars from the World Bank to execute the Science and Technology education post basic (STEP- B) project in the country.
The Federal Government says it has secured the sum of 180 million dollars from the World Bank to execute the Science and Technology education post basic (STEP- B) project in the country.
Education Minister, Igwe Aja Nwachukwu, made the disclosure on Wednesday, in Abuja, in an address to the opening of a national sensitization workshop on entrepreneurship development in Nigerian universities.
Represented by the Project Coordinator (STEP 1-B) of World Bank, Michael Adiku, the minister said the implementation of the fund had already begun, adding that the disbursement to the beneficiary institutions to develop their science and technology education capacity would soon commence.
He pointed out that the fund was secured to enable the nation's higher education institutions to acquire science and technology base and embark on massive entrepreneurship training for the students with a view to making them professionals and self-reliant on graduation.
Stating that his task was not to justify the need for entrepreneurship education in the country as the basis for the nation's industrial growth, Nwachukwu, however, emphasized that the nation was at a crossroads in entrepreneurship development. 'This underlies the approval of the Federal Government to make mandatory the teaching of entrepreneurship education in all our higher education institutions," the minister stated.
Assuring that the implementation of this directive was on course, the minister said that was further reinforced by the on-going efforts of the National Universities Commission (NUC) and the National Board for Technology Incubation (NBTI), which partnered to organize the sensitization workshop in a way that would support the emergence of a new crop of graduate entrepreneurs in the country.
In her own address to the forum, Science and Technology minister, Grace Ekpiwhre, through her Special Assistant Technical, Ochuko Anomohanran, said mass graduate unemployment in the country had been a big challenge.
Stating that this administration was quite committed to addressing that challenge, she said, 'there is no other way to tackle this great challenge than to make our students believe in themselves, by creating an entrepreneurial spirit in them right from when they are in school."