Vocational Education: an entrepreneurial, strategic tool for empowering Nigerian women: An analysis of two training academies

A Century ago, about 92% of our ancestors were entrepreneurs. Now the number is between 12 and 22%. As we lost our entrepreneurial skills, a new paradigm emerged globally. The world has shifted from centralized authority, through downsizing, companies’ splits etc, and the realization that being an employee is riskier than being an employer of labor fueled the incredible home-based business revolution in the 1990’s. In recent years, entrepreneurship has achieved significance as a driver of economic growth and poverty alleviation in Nigeria. This paper focuses on various entities that promote capacity building and entrepreneurship development through vocational education among women in Nigeria, paying special attention to ways in which these entities can better coordinate their efforts by examining two case studies. Reviews of literature on vocational training, entrepreneurship empowerment, poverty eradication followed by a conceptual framework modeling efforts of the Nigerian government, the private sector, and the citizens’ sector in promoting entrepreneurship empowerment is documented and appropriate research statistical tools were adopted to measure these efforts. The paper’s conclusions emphasize that neither markets nor governments are enough to eradicate poverty, especially in the Nigerian context. Instead, a trisectoral approach recognizing the complementarities between the government, private, and citizens’ sector may be the solution to successful capacity building among Nigerian Wome