A Professor of Educational Management, and former Vice Chancellor, Oduduwa University, Ile-Ife, Prof. William Olu-Aderounmu has reiterated the importance of Entrepreneurship education at the secondary level as a means to provide students with creative business ideas and entrepreneurial spirit.
Olu-Aderounmu, who was the guest lecturer at the 71st Founders’ Day Anniversary Lecture of Oyemekun Grammar School, Akure, said this will help prepare the students for leadership positions.
From the anniversary topic, “Oyemekun Grammar School, Akure and the Future of Secondary Education in the 21st Century and Beyond,” Olu-Aderounmu said the task of education is to implant a will and facility for learning, that should not only produce learned but learning people. According to him, from the 1990s, the emphasis in education has changed in Nigeria’s philosophy of education, which has taken a new dimension with the combination of academics with practical skills.
“There must be a change from the past teaching attitudes to modern ones, which must ensure acquisition of information, formation of healthy social and formal relationships, capacity to evaluate information and predict future outcome, and development of mental and physical skills,” he said.
Olu-Aderounmu further charged the School Teachers to engage the students in seeking leadership opportunities and expose them to various ways of investing in themselves. He said OGSA was founded with emphasis on the application of theoretical knowledge, but in recent times, the global events have redefined education and its purposes from a slightly different perspective.
While applauding the giant strides of the OGSA Alumni Association, he said their roles Alumni Association cannot be over emphasized towards the development of the educational system in the country, as the dwindling in government allocation to education had been significantly making it impossible for the school to maintain the facilities on ground. He said the adequate facilities enjoyed in the 80s had become obsolete, inadequate, and many became dilapidated.
He said the founding fathers have laid enviable and landmark achievements through their selfless and committed services. The pioneer Principal, Chief Benjamin Adinlewa and members of staff entrenched hard work, discipline, devotion to duty and quality were followed.
Olu-Aderounmu enjoined the school administrator on the need to deepen entrepreneurship education, because the present education in Nigeria is inadequate and archaic to suit the needs of modern Nigeria.
