ACCPYD sets up multi-focused entrepreneurial institute in Port Harcourt

To train youths on start-ups

ADVOCACY CEN TRE FOR CONFLICT Prevention and Youth Development (ACCPYD) has established a professional entrepreneurial development strategic institute (PEDSI) in Port Harcourt, Rivers State capital, to train youths on start-up ventures.

George Kingsley Papamie, school administrator and coordinator of PEDSI told business a.m. that the centre was out to empower young people through entrepreneurial education to reduce youth unemployment and poverty in the crisis of governance across Nigeria.

“The institute is a training provider of intervention plan of action designed to empower youths and other people through education to promote economic empowerment and development strategy through capacity utilization of industrybased competence and professionalism to improve labour market productivity and growth of social welfare in Nigeria,” he said.

Kingsley, a business journalist, said the concept of the intervention plan of action is currently popularized around the world; and it initially started in the United Kingdom in 1986; and has now spread widely to other countries including New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Singapore, Malaysia, Caribbean Islands, South Africa, Ghana, Gambia, Mauritius, Botswana, among others.

“Education is one of the social institutions which contribute significantly towards the construction and maintenance of social order, and reinforces social solidarity by defining problems and approve solutions in certain ways, and also channels human experience along certain lines,” Papamie said.

He explained that PEDSI, is designed for competency-based qualifications and a multi-stakeholder input and ownership in the education sector that defines a process of development, anchored on a clear vision, sound values and enduring principles by creating innovative ideas and solutions to re- duce unemployment and poverty among Nigerians.

Papamie, who has been a facilitator in entrepreneurship education at the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), noted that the institute was coming at a time Nigeria was in dire need of pragmatic solutions to address problems in governance; and that the creation of the professional entrepreneurial development strategic institute through professional entrepreneurial education (PEE) will focus on the award of 3-6-9 months certificate programmes and professional diploma, advanced diploma, higher diploma, graduate diploma and post-graduate diploma.

Entry qualifications are WASCE/ WAEC/ NECO/GCE and OND/ND/ NCE/HND/ BA and B.Sc. respectively.

He said some of the professional entrepreneurial development courses at the EDSI include, maritime operations and management, oil and gas trade and investment, international business relations, safety and security management, environmental and solid wastes management, tourism and hospitality management, private broadcasting management, journalism and printing press management, project management, bottle water production, acting for film and television, basic nursing and patient administration, integrated catering services, fitness and health promotion, sport management, social media management, early childhood education and day-care centre, cat-fish farming, poultry services, styling in fashion and designing, computer technology and engineering, among others.

Papamie, a member of the Chartered Institute of Public Diplomacy and Management (CIPDM) and Institute of Administrative Management of Nigeria (IAMN), further stated that the overall strategy was to diversify the productive base of the economy and foster market-oriented private sector driven economic development, with strong local participation to develop an indigenous professional entrepreneurial class, capable of competing in global markets where technology and skills play a dominant role.

He is also a member the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Rivers State council.