NECA, Imagine Business Services Launch Entrepreneurship Programme

Solomon Elusoji and Mabel Benson

The Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA), in partnership with Imagine Business Services, has launched NECApreneur, an e-learning solution targeted at providing an easy-to-access opportunity for teeming Nigerian youths to upscale their skills and become entrepreneurs rather than chase after non-existent white collar jobs.

The initiative is in tune with NECA’s mandate to influence economic and socio-labour policies to create an army of gainfully employed youths who in turn would be employers of labour and ultimately add to national development.

Speaking in Lagos recently at a formal unveiling of the e-learning solution, the Director General of NECA, Mr. Olusegun Oshinowo criticised the unemployment situation in the country. “Unemployment can lead to big security risk for businesses, so the more we do get more youths off the streets, the better for the economy,” he said.

Explaining the need for NECAPreneur, Oshinowo said: “It is particularly designed for youths and undergraduates in Nigeria and the whole idea is to create an environment where we can get our undergraduates to think entrepreneurship before they leave the university, while those who have left and are unable to get a job would be motivated to embrace entrepreneurship as well.”

The NECA D.G. further observed that “Nigeria has a population estimated over 185 million, above 50per cent of which is below 30 years, and over 13per cent of this are unemployed”. NECAPreneur, according to him, “therefore, seeks to aggressively develop and make entrepreneurs of Nigerian youths by creating entrepreneurial consciousness among the youths.”

Speaking further, he asserted that “the scheme is activated in tertiary institutions across Nigeria and also opened to the teeming youths that are already out of school.”

“It will not only equip them to birth and successfully run their own businesses, but also lead them into avenues for start-up capital, mentoring, internship opportunities through NECA’s network and eventual certification of successful participants,” he added.

The Entrepreneurship e-learning programme, which comes in three stages (Basic, Intermediate and Advance), is delivered through video tutorials and texts and structured into engaging modules with a practical and relevant curriculum.