The National Universities Commission was established in 1962 as an advisoragency in the Cabinet Office.  However in 1974, it became a statutory body which has ever since then been known for It’s main functions of Granting approval for all academic programmes running in Nigerian universities,Granting approval for the establishment of all higher educational institutions offering degree programmes in Nigerian universities,Ensuring quality assurance of all academic programmes offered in Nigerian universities and
Channel for all external support to the Nigerian universities. The NUC hereby charges varsity students on entrepreneurship and employment creation.

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Students in Nigerian universities have been charged to explore the opportunities in the business world and start thinking of setting up their own businesses before and when they graduate.

Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC), Professor Julius Okogie, who gave the charge, added that one of the ways out of the rising youth unemployment in the country is for the undergraduates to start nurturing ideas which they can turn into successful business ventures when they eventually leave school.

Okogie gave the charge, weekend, in a goodwill message to the 2014 Youth Summit for undergraduates organised by the Ambassador Emmanuel Oseimiegha Otiotio (AEOO) Foundation in Abuja.

The NUC boss, who was represented at the occasion  by the Director, Students Support Services, NUC,  Mallam Ibrahim Iro Dan-Iya,  disclosed that the Commission had, in collaboration with relevant stakeholders, initiated a number of entrepreneurship programmes for Nigerian undergraduates to enable them become job creators rather than job seekers on graduation.

“Some of these include the Network for African Student Entrepreneurs (NASE) and the Annual National Entrepreneurship Week (ANEW), both of which are aimed at providing a platform for networking and exchange of business ideas among students, promotion of entrepreneurship in the university system as well as projection of entrepreneurship to the larger society,” he said.

According to the NUC boss,  the Youth Summit with the theme: “Aspire to Greatness” could not have come at a better time than now when the increasing rate of unemployment among Nigerian tertiary institution undergraduates and the desire to create job opportunities for the teeming youth in the country had informed government’s decision to “ensure that graduates are equipped with requisite knowledge and skills to start up small scale businesses for sustainable living while in and after school.”

National University Commission
National University Commission

Maintaining that it was against this backdrop that the Federal Government in 2006 directed that Entrepreneurship Education should be entrenched in the curriculum of all Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the country, Okogie said “Hence the NUC introduced GST Entrepreneurship as a compulsory course for all undergraduates while the B.Sc Entrepreneurship was introduced as a degree programme in 2011.”

In his remarks at the occasion, President of the AEOO Foundation, Ambassador Otiotio, praised the Federal Government’s initiatives through the NUC, promising that his Foundation would synergise with and complement government’s efforts at building capacities for undergraduate youths to enable them start their own small scale businesses.

Explaining  that this would ease pressure on the government since such small businesses would create positive multiplier effects on the economy as the businesses would be able to provide employment in the private sector, he urged Nigerian undergraduates who participated at the Youth Summit to be proactive by coming up with ideas on how to drive Federal Government’s employment creation initiatives through the NUC,  assuring them that the AEOO Foundation would interface between them and the NUC.

Speakers at the summit addressed various perspectives of how to achieve greatness by  setting up private businesses as the occasion featured  motivational videos, presentation by the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), dance drama on the imperative of national unity, mentoring sessions and presentation of business plans by the various youth groups.

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