Rotary Club educates youths on importance of higher education in entrepreneurship
By Damilola Kushimo
The Rotary Club, Isolo branch, has instructed the youths and secondary school students in Isolo on the importance of higher education in sharpening their entrepreneurship skills and the need for them to engage in entrepreneurship while pursuing higher education in order to be relevant in the country’s economy.
Addressing the youths during a Career Talk organized by the Club at Lagos State Polytechnic, LASPOTECH, Isolo campus with the theme “The Importance of Higher Education; Getting Set for Entrepreneurship”, the guest speaker, Mrs. Rosemary Ogedengbe PhD, an alumna of University of Lagos (UNILAG), who made it known that entrepreneurship is the art of starting a business, running, sustaining and influencing it to grow consistently, said entrepreneurship or self-employment keeps one away from being unemployed.
Quoting National Bureau of Statistics (NBC), Ogedengbe said 65 per cent of Nigerian youths within the age bracket of 16-30 years were unemployed in 2016, noting that this remains one germane reason why youths should embrace entrepreneurship programs as it is the only undisputable way out of unemployment that might await them in the future.
The doctoral degree holder in Guidance and Counseling established the fact that any rightful thinking individual could be an entrepreneur.
She said, “You are not too young to be an entrepreneur, many billionaires nowadays began their journey to success as a young boy or girl like you. Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, a dropout of Harvard University, at age 25 was already a billionaire.”
According to her, there are some basic qualities an entrepreneur must possess, these includes passion, self-motivation, confidence, courage, diligence, focus, prudence, optimism, self-discipline, resilience and receptiveness, which she referred to as personal qualities.
Cross section of participating students
She further enumerated five technical traits successful entrepreneur must possess referred to as five fingers of a successful entrepreneur, which are “Envision; this means Self-discovery and the second one is Enlist, meaning to set up a list of ones capabilities, the third one is Embark; take a step, the fourth one Is execute which means take an action, the fifth finger Is Evolve which means keeping the pace and give room for improvement.”
She continued, “The habit and the lifestyle you choose at this stage will reflect and affect the future positively or negatively. So, cultivate the right attitude towards entrepreneurship, the attitude will follow you throughout your life.”
However, she stressed that there is no small business idea, reiterating that It is small business that grows up to become great one.
“Think and reflect on any business, there’s no small idea. Your educations will contribute to less than 50 per cent of your career. Personal characteristics are important. It’s only a fool that doesn’t make mistakes, if you depend on other people to affirm your strengths; you are killing your self-confidence.” She concluded.
Also speaking, the President of Rotary Club, Isolo branch, the convener of the program, Rotarian Dauda Adedayo, gave five basic importance of higher education, saying, “Higher education will help you learn more on average than someone who did not go to school, it helps expand your network, it helps enhance your career, it will prepare you to transit into other venture. And lastly, higher education will help you in the area of job security.”
He therefore implored the students to cultivate the habits of entrepreneurship and make sure that all that has been learned from the event are put into practice if they were to become successful in any business they would venture into.
