Group photo of students with GIZ and govt officials
By Victor Edafe, Ikeja
The Deutsche Gesellschaft Internationale Zusammenarbit (GIZ) has partnered with the Lagos State government through the Ministry of Education to empower secondary school students on entrepreneurial literacy.
The GIZ, under its Pro-Poor Growth and Promotion of Employment in Nigeria (SEDIN) Programme, piloted the Students Entrepreneurship Activity Hub (SEA-Hub) in Lagos to prepare students for now and after school life to curb youth unemployment.
Babafemi Oyediran, Entrepreneurship/Job Creation Advisor, GIZ-SEDIN, while speaking at the launch of the SEA-Hub in the state’s Education District One, comprising Agege, Ifako/Ijaiye and Alimosho schools, said that the project rationale was to equip students with basic entrepreneurial skills for wealth creation and to cut by half, the unemployment rate in the country.
We are working in partnership with the Lagos State Ministry of Education’s STEAM UP project to pilot the SEA Hub, one of the SEDIN-GIZ component and entrepreneurship and economic engagement for Micro Small Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
“We have three students and two teachers from each school and we have six schools represented in the Agege Phase for Alimosho, where we have 12 schools.
We are providing them with basic entrepreneurial knowledge and with the key mandate to return to their schools to establish the entrepreneurship club and run practical mini businesses, which is different from what they will learn in the classrooms.
He added that currently, no fewer than 25,000 students are active in SEA-Hub activities and it is active in 320 secondary schools, stressing that 60 per cent of this number are girls.
He also explained that the SEA-Hub students were taught to identify challenges in their immediate community.
Adetola Salau, Senior Special Assistant on Education to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, said with the COVID-19 pandemic, it had become pertinent to merge technologies with skills, critical thinking and problem-solving abilities to be able to survive.
“The project STEAM UP Lagos was conceived to actualise the first ‘E’ which represents education, infused with technology and making sure that we meet global standards.
“One of such standards globally is STEAM, which is a way of teaching and learning, bringing all the various subjects streamlined to solving problems and relevant learning for students.
“The selection process for the students and teachers represented are aftermath of what we want, what the governor wants and what is good for the state, as those that we believe will be able to step down what is learnt at their various schools.
With what happened during the pandemic, everything is now online and we are all participating in the global market space.
“What is paramount is the skill they are learning, being able to think critically, creativity, problem solving and collaborate with each other, use this and who knows what is going to come up from here.”
She thereby commended the GIZ-SEDIN for the hand of partnership, stating that the initiative will be spread to other districts like Badagry.
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