The Governing Council of the Imo state Polytechnic, has beefed up its academic curriculum to address the disturbing issues of joblessness and unemployability among fresh graduates of tertiary institutions in the country.
This was sequel to a policy initiative adopted by the Governing Council under the chairmanship of Hon. Obulimba Innocent Ekeh, which now makes it compulsory for every student of Imo State Polytechnic to undergo intensive entrepreneurial and mentorship training in addition to their existing course work.
Speaking to the Chairman of the Polytechnic’s Governing Council, Hon. Obulimba Innocent Ekeh, he hinted that the new policy guideline was adopted at the 119th regular council meeting of the institution, with the deliberate design of focusing not just on churning out graduates but on producing job creators instead of the usual crowd of job seekers.
According to Ekeh, the Council also directed that the training program would cover both students offering full-time courses and those offering part-time courses.
To further strengthen and incentivize the entrepreneurial training, the council also adopted a mentorship and empowerment scheme in furtherance of the shared-prosperity philosophy.
The design is such that each student shall be attached to a relevant business unit within the institution and mentored for the period of his/her course of study. At graduation, the student would have the opportunity to apply for a business startup grant from the institution provided the proposal is accompanied with a feasible and realistic business plan. The Polytechnic management shall assess the merit of such grant application and if approved, shall fund the business largely by procuring capital equipment, small tools, raw materials and minimal cash to cover the first cycle of production and sales, followed with close supervision over a stipulated period of time.
It is the intendment of the Polytechnic that with the new policy, graduates of the institution will emerge key players in the economy of the state and country in the next half a decade.
