What SME Owners in Nigeria Should Know About N-SEP
Are you an SME in Africa? Have you heard of the National School Entrepreneurship Programme (N-SEP)? Do you know that this initiative was created to build entrepreneurs in Nigeria? It is well-known that Africa is blessed with human resources. However, the continent is plagued with underdevelopment and mismanagement of these human resources.
About N-SEP
The National School Entrepreneurship Programme (N-SEP) was created to harness the entrepreneurial mindset among students in the primary and secondary levels. It is an initiative of SMEDAN- Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria, established by the SMEDAN Act of 2003. SMEDAN is an agency set up to promote the development of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) in the Nigerian economy.
The core mission of the National School Entrepreneurship Programme (N-SEP) is to eliminate poverty and curb the massive youth employment in Nigeria. It will achieve this by delivering hands-on entrepreneurship training to all primary and secondary school students in Nigeria.
This initiative is brilliant as students learn how to build and run a business as well as cultivate an investment culture. It will also create responsible citizens who will be able to take up responsibilities in their communities. The participating schools will run a “School Bank” supervised by students and assisted by financial institutions.
According to the Director-General of SMEDAN, about 108,000 pupils had been trained as of June 2019. He stated that about 54 primary schools and 54 secondary schools in six states had participated. N-SEP is a comprehensive national programme. Its planning and activities will be coordinated with the Office of the Vice President. Also, various stakeholder-state governments, Federal Ministry of Education, Financial Institutions, public agencies and private sector organisations as well.
Conclusion
This programme is projected to reach 1.5 million students in five years. It is expected to create about 3,700 micro-businesses by participating schools. About 5,000 teachers will be trained on how to deliver entrepreneurship education to students.
You can check out our article on How MSMEs can register with SMEDAN.
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