ARUA Center of Excellence for Unemployment and Skills Development, University of Lagos • Entrepreneurship and Skills Development Center, University of Lagos • University of IOWA, USA • Africa Research Universities Alliance (ARUA) • United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI) • Bank of Industry (BOI-Nigeria) • University of Nairobi, Kenya • University in Ghana, Accra, Ghana • University of Cape Town, South Africa • University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa • Lecturers selected from all departments in Participating Universities.
EIMEC is a lecturers’ capacity development program that leverages on a tailor-made curriculum and facilitators from academia, industry, civil-society and government to provide sustainable entrepreneurship education for students in Africa.
Towards supporting African Universities to evolve into entrepreneurial universities whose processes, people and practices will support the co-production of graduates who are entrepreneurial and self reliant and ultimately creating solutions to the menace of unemployment and poverty in Africa, The Entrepreneurship and Innovation Mentorship Education Certification (EIMEC) program supported by a UKRI ARUA grant designed a tailor-made capacity development program for lecturers. The program draws facilitators from academia, industry, civil society and government to deliver a tailor-made curriculum delivered over 120 hours divided into 96 contact hours and 24 hours of remote learning and field work.
One of the specific objectives EIMEC is to develop the capacity of faculty members to facilitate entrepreneurship education courses that will lead to the development of entrepreneurial mindset in students. It is expected that students will acquire the relevant skills required for opportunity identification and exploitation. The EIMEC project targets providing support for lecturers in terms of training, mentorship and capacity development required for delivery of entrepreneurship courses to students using global best practices. It is expected that the trained faculties will be equipped to creatively set-up innovative entrepreneurship programs in their respective disciplines and departments of participating universities.
Upon completion, lecturers are to serve as a guide, coach and mentor to student entrepreneurs as they engage in viable businesses that will create jobs even before they graduate from the university. The program also seeks to develop lecturer’s capacity to empower students with relevant competencies that will help them identify and exploit opportunities, create value for self and others, reduce unemployment and also promote socio-economic development in Africa.
To achieve this feat, a unique tailor made curriculum was designed using a baseline research data derived from students and lecturers. The delivery of the curriculum contents entailed the use of case studies, presentations, demonstrations, group projects and team based activities and field work as facilitation tools for topics such as design thinking, opportunity identification and exploitation, funding, social entrepreneurship feasibility studies, business plan writing among others. Today, EIMEC has been successfully conducted in the University of Lagos and the University of Nairobi, Kenya. For the two countries, facilitators were selected from volunteers from the academy, industry, Civil society organization, Government and other relevant stakeholders in Nigeria, Kenya, USA,
Presently, there is an ongoing search for partners that will provide support and funding that will help scale the program to more universities in Africa.
