Extend TETFUND benefits, privileges to private Varsities – Bamidele tasks FG

…advocates review of school curricular to promote productivity

By Precious Oham

The Chairman, Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, Senator Michael Opeyemi Bamidele, has urged the federal government to extend funding to private universities running entrepreneurial studies across the nation to make their graduates financially self- reliant .

Senator Bamidele vehemently disagreed with the current template, whereby such funding was being limited to public universities, insisting that intervention of this fashion should cover both public and private ivory towers offering Entrepreneurial Studies as a course.

Bamidele, the Chairman, Southern Senators’ Forum, said this at Ikeji Arakeji, Osun State, at the weekend, while being decorated with the honourary Doctor of Public Administration by the Joseph Ayo Babalola University(JABU), in recognition of his exemplary and enigmatic services to the nation.

The Federal lawmaker added that the priority placed on entreneurship by JABU, underscored its unshaken commitment to abate the cankerworms of unemployment and poverty that are ravaging the country and having resonating effects like kidnappings, killings and internet fraud.

Bamidele advocated holistic reworking of the country’s curricular from primary to tertiary cadres to inject skills and entrepreneurship that will promote productivity and revitalise the ailing economy.

Bamidele stated that for the vision of making Nigeria a nation that can protect the rights of citizens and boost their potentials, that government at all levels must show interest in how universities prosecute their entrepreneurial studies, to add traction to human capital development.

“To this end, I implore the Federal Government to encourage all public and private universities that are currently engaging in entrepreneurship studies by extending the TETFUND benefits and privileges to them.

“This is to enable them admit and train more students in line with global standards. Also, as the nation’s private sector and the innovative industry is getting repositioned for us to build a more expansive economy, the Government should urgently create more enabling legal regime and infrastructural environment for business and creativity to thrive better in Nigeria”.

Bamidele applauded JABU for placing high premium on promotion of self employment among its graduates, saying this has distinguished it as a citadel of learning with focus and clairvoyance for excellence .

“The priority your university attaches to entrepreneurship training is indeed, an eloquent testimony to the depth of the vision, wealth of experience and the magnitude of exposure of the founding fathers of this university.

” It is a demonstration of their ability to see ahead and readily admit that the greatness of our future as a nation largely depends on the extent to which our youth can create wealth through the deployment of their diverse skills and innovative ideas.

“Apart from helping to curb the menace of massive unemployment among our graduates and young school leavers, it also gives them the capacity to gainfully earn income, become financially self-reliant and even create job opportunities for others.”