Lagos – Mr Albert Philips, a school principal in Lagos State, says that the entrepreneurial skills recently introduced into the school curriculum, is improving learning among students in the state.
Philips, the Principal of Boys’ Senior Academy, Lagos Island, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Lagos in an interview.
He said that this had impacted positively on students’ performance in their external examinations, especially, in trade subjects.
NAN recalls that trade subjects were recently introduced into secondary school curriculum by the Federal Ministry of Education to encourage self-reliance to enhance job creation.
According to the principal, the students regard the entrepreneurial education as fun because the trade subjects emphasise the use of hands and brain, which is helping their desire to study.
“Entrepreneurial skills lay more emphasis on the use of the heads and hands, which has engendered the zeal to learn more.
“Education has shifted forward, diverting into what students can do with their hands instead of just reading!, reading!!, and reading !!!.
“Students are doing well in combining the two together, that is, the entrepreneurial education and other subjects,’’ he said.
Philips, the immediate past president of All Nigerian Conference of Principals of Secondary Schools (ANCOPSS), said that most of the students were enthusiastic to further their education alongside the trade subject.
According to him, many of the students also enrolled with artisans in their chosen trades to enable them practise what they had learnt in school.
“Most of the students prefer to go, after school hours, to learn more about their chosen trade at artisans’ workshops close to them.
“They are now self-reliant; they are no more job seekers but job creators, although at a small scale level,’’ he said.
Philips said that though the government had tried to provide teachers for various trade subjects, but the schools needed more.
According to him, at the Boys’ Senior Academy, the agriculture teacher, who studied animal husbandry at the polytechnic and bagged the HND and later bagged a B.Ed in agriculture science from the university, is teaching the students animal husbandry as a trade skill.
“An old student of the school also comes around to take the students in creative arts two or three times in a week at no cost to the school management.
“He teaches the students on how to make gift-boxes, using old calendars and boxes,’’ he said. (NAN)
