INSERVICE TRAINING AND ENTRENCHMENT OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION AMONG TEACHERS

FOR SELF-RELIANCE AND YOUTH EMPOWERMENT

IN NIGERIA: IMPLICATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

ABSTRACT
This paper focused on the promotion of entrepreneurship education among teachers through in-
service training. It is hoped that teachers can acquire the requisite knowledge and skills through this
training and in turn impart such on their students toenhance their economic status. The authors
therefore explore the need for entrepreneural skills to be fostered through in-service training which
will in turn enhance sustainable development. Issues raised include the concepts of entrepreneurship
and entrepreneurship education, Goals and objectives of entrepreneurship, Concepts, Objectives and
Types of in-service training, Rationale for Entrepreneurship training, Challenges of Entrepreneurship
through In-service Training, sustainable Development and recommendations.
Keywords: Entrepreneurship Education, Teachers In-service Training, Self-reliance, Youth
Empowerment and sustainable development.

INTRODUCTION
It has become a sad reality that most of the teachers who passed through teacher education
institutions in Nigeria prior to the 20 th Century had no access to Entrepreneurship education. They
only focused on the acquisition of the basic teaching requirements: knowledge of the subject matter,
methodology and teaching practice. As Bassey (2012) posited, unfortunately, learning access through
universities and other tertiary institutions was almost non-existent for entrepreneurship education.
This was because knowledge, skills competenceand mindset needed to create jobs by conceiling ideas
and starting up new business were not taught before now in our traditional school system. A recent
research carried out recently confirmed that entrepreneurship education had not taken root in most
of our tertiary institutions that train teachers. Egurunyenga and Osague (2011) researched on
“Entrepreneurship Education: Relevance in Graduate Employment in Ngeria”. The study revealed
among others that entrepreneurship education did not have major status in the curriculum of most
Nigerian Universities because it had not been properly accommodated.
The authors of this paper have observed that on the part of the teachers in Nigeria, the lack of
aquisition of entrepreneurship know how cannot empower them to transfer same to their students,
neither can they utilize it for self reliance, especially in their time of retirement. Consequently, they
do notthing but depend on pension and gratuity which hardly come. In another development,
Chukwuma (2013) observed that stakeholders in education have constantly bemoaned the
unfortunate trend in which Nigerian tertiary institutions annually turn out graduates who roam the
streets daily in search of non-existing jobs. This ugly phenomenon, the author states,has been named
as a dysfuntional education system that has structurally failed to capture the dynamic nature of
education aspect of transformation and a catalyst for individual and societal self-reliance. Agbiji, Ode
and Agidi (2013) lamented the alarming situation in which about 10 million youths (Including
graduates of all cadres) in Nigeria are unemployed.
It has therefore become expedient to provide entrepreneurship and educational programmes for all
cathegories of teachers in Nigeria, which will enable them to instill in their students the knowledge,
skill and competence they need for financial stability, self-reliance as well as adequately prepare
themselves for life afer career. All these will impact on sustainable development.