AIT clarifies why its prioritizes Nigerian students

The Accra Institute of Technology (AIT), a Ghana-based independent technology-focused university, has said it is targeting students from Nigeria more than any other country in Africa because students from Nigeria have aspirations of setting up enterprises immediately after they graduate from the university based on the knowledge gained.

Founder and President of AIT, Professor Clement Dzidonu, said this while speaking with journalists during a breakfast meeting in Lagos, recently.

He said this is unlike in Ghana where the students aimed to be employed by already established companies.

“Nigerian students are always more enterprising than Ghanaian students. While still in school, they are already thinking of how to set up their own companies that will ultimately employ people. But that is not the case with most students from Ghana, whose mindset is to get employed, Dzidonu said.

According to him, this mindset from the Nigerian student has inspired the university, which is modelled on internationally recognised institutes of technologies like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA which is consistently ranked as the top technological university in the world, to absolve entrepreneurship as part of its curriculum.

He said the university trains students with skills that make them set up enterprises.

We have a business development centre in Accra Institute of Technology, especially for final year students, where we prepare them to be companies’ owners, he disclosed.

Dzidonu explained that this idea has become important owing to the fact that there are no jobs for those looking for jobs after graduating from school. Rather, universities should kit students with relevant skills to be self-employ.