No fewer than 14, 000 students of Lagos State Polytechnic (LASPOTECH) have participated in vocational endeavours in the past three years, the Director, Centre for Entrepreneurship and Skills Acquisition, Mr. Ademola Aderogba, said that “the training has been going on in the institution for about eight years now. It was created to curb unemployment, thus making youths employers rather than job seekers.
“The training comes in theoretical and practical aspects, but due to lack of buildings and materials for training the students, alternative to practical was implemented.
“We put our students in groups; they discuss what they want to do and the one with more knowledge puts all of them through,’’ Aderogba said.
He added that through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), the institution got assistance for infrastructure for practical training.
Aderogba, however, said it was difficult to measure how well students had acquired skills because of the vast knowledge of a few of them.
“Most times, they do projects in groups and the best student may be the one to lead the group. That way, we don’t know which student needs more training and those that are professionals.
“We have about 28 skills in this centre, including tailoring and fashion, catering, leather work, performing arts, music, photography, bags and shoe making, plumbing, events planning, food processing, among others.
“Students can choose from a wide range of these skills because we have facilitators for each one,” he said.
The director added that the courses were open to the public because one of the objectives of the centre was to impact on immediate and neighbouring communities.
“We have made it compulsory for our students to learn any entrepreneurship skill. We enforced it because some of the students believe there are jobs in the labour market.
“Grades are attached to the courses, so the students don’t have an option but to work hard and show what they have done at the end of the semester.
“Even those studying music must have a track to produce and showcase. We have the needed equipment made available for them to work with. I encourage students to see entrepreneurship as another source of income.
“You can choose to work in a bank and have a business by the side giving you multiple sources of income.
“We work with the Lagos State Trust Fund and once we can identify good students, we recommend them to be assisted financially to start their businesses,’’ Aderogba said.