A delegation from the British Council (BC), led by the Country Director, Ms. Lucy Pearson, last week Tuesday, visited the Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Abubakar Adamu Rasheed, mni, MFR, FNAL, where they pledged to support the Commission’s activities on Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
Welcoming the delegation, the Executive Secretary noted that entrepreneurship training in particular was very crucial in the light of the new curriculum content being developed and offered to Nigerian students.
He stated that the reviewed curriculum which the NUC would launch shortly was a clear departure from the faulty understanding of entrepreneurship which students had hitherto been exposed to.
The new curriculum, he said, captured and showed a clearer understanding of entrepreneurship, whose teaching and practice would position graduates to have a more secure future.
While expressing the view that not all graduates might be entrepreneurs, he, however, hoped that those who would walk that path would make a success of it.
Prof. Rasheed further intimated the meeting of the NUC Skills and Innovation Advisory Committee headed by Mr. Tope Toogun, of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), one of the strategic partners of the Commission in the Nigeria Triple Helix agenda. He expressed high hopes of the impact the Committee would bring on the NUS, Nigerian students and graduates and ultimately, on national development.
In her remarks, Ms. Pearson expressed the Council’s gratitude to the Executive Secretary for the invitation extended to the British Council to participate at the maiden meeting of Directors of Entrepreneurship Development Centres in Nigerian Universities.
The team also expressed appreciation to the leadership of the NUC for ensuring that its policy decisions were geared towards unlocking youth potential through the mainstreaming of entrepreneurship in the national curriculum.
They further intimated the Executive Secretary on an Innovation in African Universities Programme championed by the Council, which they hoped would complement all that the NUC was achieving, and aimed to achieve, regarding entrepreneurship and innovation.
Meanwhile, the Innovation for African Universities (IAU) project is part of the Going Global Partnerships programme, to foster the culture of innovation and entrepreneurship within universities and facilitate the development of skills required to build industries, companies, products and services.
The project is also designed to support the development of Africa – UK University Partnerships that builds institutional capacity for Higher Education (HE) engagement in entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystems in selected African countries.
The highlight of the meeting was the handover of a written commitment of the Council by its Regional Director, Operations in Sub Saharan Africa, Moses Mr. Anibaba, where he reassured the Executive Secretary of the Council’s continued support.
In the delegation of the British Council was the Director Programmes and Regional HE Portfolio Lead, Mrs. Adetomi Soyinka.
At the meeting were NESG Representative, Mr. Tope Toogun; Deputy Executive Secretary; Mr. Chris J. Maiyaki, Acting Director of the Directorate of Skills Development and Entrepreneurship, Mr. Ashafa Ladan,; Director in the Office of the Executive Secretary, Mr. John Ahmadu Mairafi and Head of Special Duties Division, Ms. Ulonna Inyama.