Lagos State partners Premier League and British Council on youth development

The British Council and English Premier League in partnership with the Lagos State Ministry of Education and Lagos State Football Association have introduced the Premier Skills International Enterprise Challenge. A project aimed at using the English Premier League’s expertise in the UK, alongside the British Council’s global network to engage, inspire and unlock potential by developing business and enterprising skills in young people across several schools in Lagos state, using the power of football.  This new project builds on the highly successful Premier Skills/Ekofootball partnership introduced in Lagos public schools in 2014.

Five teachers from Abeeso Community High School, Gbadagada Senior Grammar School, Morocco Comprehensive Junior High School, Girls Senior Academy Lagos Island and Iponri Estate High School will represent Nigeria at a workshop scheduled to hold from 22^nd to 28^th November in Lusaka, Zambia. The six-day training programme will enable them to run the International Enterprise Challenge competition with groups of young people in their schools.

The teachers who have participated in the training will then enter a competition where each of their schools fields one team of five students aged 14-16 years old. The Challenge will involve the young people in developing a solution to a ‘real life’ enterprise challenge from the commercial football sector (e.g. how can a local professional football club increase its fan base?). These teams compete in a national final, where a panel of judges will select a national winner. 

Roy Chikwem, Project Manager Education and Society, British Council, said, “Students from the schools where these Premier Skills teachers teach will experience a myriad of benefits from developing camaraderie, developing business acumen and team building to an array of new and enhanced skills through their participation on this programme.”

The Enterprise Challenge is a programme which uses football to engage young people in business enterprise. It is a new strand of the British Council and Premier League's hugely successful Premier Skills project.