As part of its effort to create more youth entrepreneurs and enhance technical education in the state, the Kwara State Government has budgeted N200 million as soft loan for artisan and transport cooperatives to empower their members and boost activities in both sectors.
Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed of Kwara State, who tasked the Head of Tertiary Educational Institutions in the country to make entrepreneurship education a major component of the curricular of Polytechnic and Colleges of Technology to check the unemployment rate in the country, disclosed this on Tuesday while declaring open the 126th regular meeting of COHEAD in Ilorin, the state capital.
Ahmed said that it was disturbing that the labour market is “saturated with unemployable graduates, youths who cannot clearly express themselves, not to talk of possessing the required skills for self employment.”
According to the governor, his administration established the Ministry of Tertiary Education, Science and Technology, improved budgetary allocation to the higher education sector, established the City and Guilds of London moderated International Vocational Centre and trained 150 youths in conjunction with the Kwara State University on Youth Entrepreneurship with access to N50 million loan facility in order to create more opportunities for the youths and expand economic activities in the state.
Ahmed also advised students of tertiary institutions to shun cultism as it is detrimental to self and national development, emphasizing: “Cultism does not pay anybody.
“It does not bring anything but sadness.
“It is an escapist means of trying to meet up with the society.
“Anybody who engages in cultism is mentally weak.”
The Chairman of the COHEAD, Dr. Kabir Mutazu, said the association was established in 1957 to improve quality and standard of technical and vocational education in Nigeria through peer review mechanism.
The Rector of the Kwara State Polytechnic, Ilorin, the host institution, Alhaji Mas’ud Elelu, said the institution has 51 of its 54 programmes accredited by the National Board of Technical Education.
KWSG supports artisans with N200m
