SEC Begins Process to Teach Capital Market Studies in Schools

By Adedapo Adesanya  

As part of its effort to drive more interest and create public enlightenment on the capital market, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced that it has commenced the development of teacher guides to infuse Capital Market Studies (CMS) into the curriculum of schools in Nigeria.

This was disclosed by the Acting Director-General of the SEC, Ms Mary Uduk, during her welcome speech at the Third Quarter Capital Market Committee (CMC) Meeting held in Lagos last week.

According to Ms Uduk, “In terms of our investor education efforts, you are aware of the initiative towards including Capital Market Studies into curricula of Basic and Senior Secondary Schools.

“Having infused the capital market content into this curriculum, the next phase of our work is to develop Teachers’ Guides.  We have equally constituted a steering committee for the universities’ curriculum.”

“Taking our investor enlightenment drive further, we hosted over 250 personnel of the military, para-military and security agencies in August.

“The program was a first of its kind with the participants anxious for more exposure to the capital market.  A similar engagement was held in Lagos in October, with the equal success recorded,” she further said.

The drive for understanding the capital market has been a call to the SEC, due to the many potential and opportunities it presents.

On his part, Chairman of the SEC Board, Mr Olufemi Lijadu, said, “The capital market plays a critical role in the development of any country. At this period where prices of oil price are lower than they were before, capital markets could be a medium to raise more funds to finance the nation’s development projects.

“What we do here at this CMC meeting has far greater implications for the economy. We hope and trust that this will be the beginning of the good partnership between the SEC board and the market as we both have a common objective of developing a first-class capital market.”

“We hope to build a capital market where there is transparency, fairness, liquidity, compliance among others. A lot of the knowledge and research capability you have as stakeholders will be of immense assistance to us as we pursue these laudable goals to make our market a world-class capital market,” Mr Lijadu added.