THE ADVENT OF ENTERPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION IN SECONDARY EDUCATION CURRICULUM IN NIGERIA: MATTERS ARISING

A new curriculum, laying emphasis on entrepreneurship education, had been approved for secondary education in Nigeria. A justification for this is the need to address the challenge of unemployment in the country, particularly, to equip the young school leavers with functional skills and developing in them, positive attitude towards self-employment. It is also meant to cater for those students who might not be able to proceed to tertiary institutions after secondary education. The introduction of the curriculum has led to the introduction of some trade subjects for students at senior secondary level. In this paper, issues at stake such as: the difficulty in the choice of career/subjects by students and construction of time table in schools; lack of background knowledge of students in most of the trade subjects; challenge of evaluation of students on the subjects; future prospects of graduates of the curriculum, non-availability of relevant textbooks, as well as lack of workshop and inadequate facilities for practical, which can undermine the success of the programme, are discussed. To achieve a successful implementation of the curriculum, provision of an enabling environment; making budgetary provision for counterpart funding; mobilizing funds from different donors; sensitization and advocacy campaigns to raise public and stakeholders’ awareness and interest in the curriculum; involvement of private sector in the curriculum implementation; training of teachers for effective implementation of the curriculum, regular review of the curriculum; provision of infrastructure for implementation of the curriculum; as well as the monitoring and evaluation of implementation of the curriculum in schools; are recommended.