By Amaechi Agbo

In its bid to promote practical application of entrepreneurship to improve of societal needs, the Entrepreneurship Development Centre (EDC) ESUT recently organized a train the trainer workshop in the University.

The workshop which held at the EDC Building at the main campus of the University at Agbani was to acquaint the lecturers and Practicum Instructors of the programmes of the Centre and the CCMAS implementation in the University

Anchored on the theme “Learning Journey: Teach-The-Teacher”, guest speakers made paper presentations highlighting the importance of acquisition of entrepreneurship skills before they leave the university.

In his opening address, the Director of the Centre, Prof Jude Udenta, thanked the Vice- Chancellor, Prof. Aloysius Michaels-Nnnabugwu Okolie, for giving the Centre the platform to perform. He described the Vice-Chancellor as a change agent and promised not to fail him or the University. The Director thanked the facilitators and partners for attending the workshop and promised them a rewarding session.

In her paper, titled “Demands of CCMAS on Entrepreneurship Education”, the Director, Institute of Education, ESUT, Prof. Ngozika Mbarjiorgu, reminded participants that skill acquisition is not entrepreneurship. She advised the lecturers to let the students understand that only when the skill is used to innovate that it is entrepreneurship.

Prof. Chike Anibeze, Director of Academic Planning, commended the Centre for organising the workshop, describing it as timely. He posited that entrepreneurship hinges on value addition for economic development.

During his paper presentation, Director, ESUT Consult, Prof. Okey Oji described  business model as a rationale of how an organisation delivers and captures value. He stressed business model as a blueprint for strategy to be implemented through organisational structures, processes and systems. He advocated that key business model canvas should revolve around knowing key partners, activities, value propositions, customer relationships, customer segments, key resources, channels and revenue streams.

On his part, the Deputy Director EDC, Prof Chris Orga who delivered a paper on “Entrepreneurship and Innovation: Understanding the Embedded Contents”

described CCMAS as a bold attempt at re-orientating the students on entrepreneurship. He x-rayed the contents of the course – Entrepreneurship and Innovation and identified basic concepts of entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship, theories of entrepreneurship, innovation, forms of business ownership, critical thinking and 21st century skills.

He advised the participants to ensure the students were taught the biography of successful entrepreneurs as it would propel them to embrace entrepreneurship. He advocated the adoption of subjective questions in testing the students understanding of entrepreneurship and innovation, instead of the present evaluation method based on multiple choice questions. He warned that the continued use of multiple choice questions in evaluation would turn the students into robots and would increase stereotyping.

Earlier in his opening speech, the Director, EDC, Prof. Jude Udenta expressed gratitude to the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Aloysius-Michaels Okolie for giving the Centre the platform to perform. He equally appreciated the facilitators and partners for attending the workshop and promised that their views would be collated and implemented to make the centre more viable.

Highlights of the workshop were the tour of EDC facilities and issuance of certificates to the facilitators and participants.