The Lagos State Cooperative College (LASCOCO) and the Edo State Ministry of Business, Trade and Cooperatives are to collaborate towards building the capacity of cooperative trustees and corporators in Edo State. This was disclosed during a working visit by a team from Edo who are in Lagos to understudy the academic programmes and training of the institution.
Welcoming the delegation, the Acting Provost of the College, Dr. Walid Adebosin, expressed the College’s readiness and willingness to enter into any collaboration that would see to the development of cooperative movement and education, as requested by the visiting team, adding that the institution runs entrepreneurial initiatives based on academic programmes.
Giving insight into the College’s academic curriculums, he said, “Aside from one of the institution’s mandates which is to build capacities of cooperatives trustees and members, the function of supplying the skill labour requirement of the state birthed the accredited National Diploma programmes and other courses in the institution. They are also guided by the philosophy of entrepreneurship initiative which ensures that students have additional skills aside from their diploma qualification certificate in their chosen course of study.”
To drive home the entrepreneurship point, Dr. Adebosin said, “Every student has to take a vocational training programme at the Lagos State Women Development Centre, which is the reason for the collaboration with that arm of the state government agency.”
Furthermore, in deepening the intensive practical knowledge training of the students, many of the National Diploma Programmes and Professional Diploma Programmes lecturers are seasoned practitioners in various fields, including microfinance banks and others.
On the nine months skill-up technical acquisition programme of the institution, Dr. Adebosin, said the vocation which started on the premise of producing qualified standard and quality technicians and semi-skilled labour for the Lekki Free Trade Zone, would benefit the immediate and host community in employment ratio as well provide Medium Small Micro Enterprises with the needed set of workforce, partnering with competent technical training institute to ensure quality deliverables to the students.
He noted that the programme was based on the City and Guild’s Curriculum which allowed graduates of the programme to be assessed for certification by the international examination body thereby giving the competitive advantage of international measurable standards in Nigeria to the graduates in addition to the school certificate to be earned.
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Business, Trade and Cooperatives, Mrs. Felicia Edopholor Esq, who expressed satisfaction with the academic curriculum and programmes of the College, expressed the desire of the Ministry to collaborate with LASCOCO.
“I have seen the Lagos State Cooperative College and I am impressed. We should be able to collaborate so I would like our team, cooperative societies trustees and members, to come for training at the College or your team can come to Edo State to train them because it is necessary. It is not just enough to run a cooperative society; you should know the nitty-gritty of running it”.
“Furthermore, I am very satisfied with the LASCOCO’s curriculum that I have seen, especially the collaboration with the Women Development Centre for skill acquisition. I am also impressed with the College accreditation by JAMB,” she said.
