The Managing Director and CEO of Bratim Business School, Mr Tejan Ibrahim, has emphasised the need to teach young people life skills alongside academics to help them become better adults.
Ibrahim disclosed this during the graduation ceremony of the second cohort of students from its special youth programme tagged ‘Essential Life Skills: Beyond Academics’.
He said: “This programme was created to ensure that young people are not only educated but also equipped for life.We teach the essential life skills.One of the things we tell them is to be aware of who they are.We do SWOT analysis with them to know their strengths and weaknesses and know how we can help them.
“While academics open doors, it is life skills that determine how far they can go through the doors. That is why we have focused on building strengths in communication, emotional intelligence, financial literacy, team work, problem-solving skills, goal-setting and strategic thinking. This is the second cohort and we look forward to training more young people in the future.”
“We want to impact based on the gaps we have seen in the society.We have realised that the young ones can become better leaders tomorrow if they have the appropriate emotional intelligence, have the right attitude and set goals for themselves. What we teach them is hands-on and they have to do the practical presentations of goals they have set for themselves.We will also be here to guide them as mentors to achieve it,” Ibrahim added.
A facilitator and Vice Chairman, Learning Strategy Committee, Bratim Business School, Mrs Esesua Adeyemi, said ‘Essential Life Skills’ is a training for teenagers between 15 and 18 years-old life skills.
She said: “So, what Essential Life Skills is doing is to help guide young people to achieve what they want to be in future.We coach them,teach them skills and keep mentoring them.”
One of the graduating students, Muhammad Bello, shared his experience thus: “What I benefited from this programme mainly is in the area of public speaking and developing leadership skills. Also, i learnt that i should be resilient because there will be challenges in achieving the goals I have set.”
