The Vice Chancellor of Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UNIZIK) Prof. Charles Esimone has thanked Anambra state government led by Governor Chukwuma Soludo for partnering with Unizik Business School (UBS) which, according to him, would be part of services offered by the institution as a community development service.
Esimone while speaking at the launching of ‘One Youth, Two Skills’ scheme on Tuesday in Awka, congratulated the selected Entrepreneurship Development Institutes (EDIs) and urged them to take the exercise as a very important assignment capable of liberating many youths from shackles of poverty.
In his remark, the Unizik Business School (UBS) Director, Prof. Emma Okoye, said the scheme was to empower young people with necessary skills, that will leap them into productive ventures, as well as to help beneficiaries become more responsible members of society.
Okoye assured that UBS was prepared to deliver on the assignment, while commending the state government for deeming it right to partner with the University.
“The programme offers another opportunity for impacting on our young people so as to help in making them more useful and bring about a lasting and enduring solution to poverty reduction to Ndi Anambra”, Prof. Okoye said.
Also speaking, Prof. Chinedu Onyeizugbe, who is the chairman, ‘One Youth, Two Skills’ Entrepreneurship Scheme, described the scheme as laudable and timely, while disclosing that the curriculum of the training was developed by UBS experts, who would also monitor and evaluate the performances of EDIs over the course of the entrepreneurship training programme.
While tasking EDIs to follow the training curriculum to the letter, Prof. Onyeizugbe, who is also the UBS Deputy Director, warned that any EDI that fails to meet up with expectations would be removed from the programme and replaced with other EDIs from the teeming waitlist.
ANN reports that the Anambra State Chairman of Nigerian Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (NASME), Mr. Chinenerem Oguegbe, promised on behalf of other EDIs, that they would take the training serious, even as he urged the state government and UBS not to rest on their oars.
