South Africa is facing a lot of challenges economically; the poor performance in development is associated with lack of entrepreneurship skills locally. The higher unemployment rate proves that there is over supply of work force and this is proving to be a continuously growing problem looking at the rate the economy is going and the rate at which graduates are entering the job hunting market.
When a diagnosis was done, it was revealed that the ‘type’ of education and modules offered play a huge role in persuading a learner to consider entrepreneurship as a career. As a solution to this problem attempts by the institutes of higher learning were made to add on a module focusing on entrepreneurship to most of the qualifications they offer, which is a good thing I believe, exactly just what the country needs. The question remains what should people be taught about entrepreneurship? What I can tell now is that, if we going to teach people how to write business plans and claim people are empowered then we just added a new challenge to the table.
People are going to go home and come with brilliant business plans, hand them in and hope someone will fund it, which is equivalent to graduating and hoping someone will hire you. If the people who were taught entrepreneurship will still be stuck with ideas and hopes of funding then we can say we just diverted their attention from seeking jobs to seeking funding.
The problem to this is that we going to end up with brilliant businesses on paper and non-existent ‘actual’ functioning business. The universities continue to teach students what they good at, theories and how to adhere to red tape. Let’s face it, our higher institutions of learning are not aligned to the business and working world. In my opinion the most important thing is the business itself, the paper work is important but the paper work does not pay bills or either will it get you funding, so why teach me about paper work and claim you taught me how to be an entrepreneur.
The country is alive with possibilities being it that we are a young growing economy. There has never been a better time for youth to try out a different route and skip out on the corporate world, especially now that there’s such high unemployment. Get a mentor, someone who will be able to get you to hit the ground running in business. The internet is also a useful tool; there is so much you can learn just by doing research and checking out YouTube. In this day and age where we able to access anything we want via the internet, ignorance will really be a choice. Empower yourself and do not wait for a job or funding to come your way, whatever idea it is you have JUST START dammit and you will be surprised just how the universe rewards self-starters…
The dots always connect, and like Steve Jobs said: You can’t connect the dots looking forward you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. ALL THE BEST!!
Article By Dimo wa Moraswi Sekele (Added on by Kagiso Maloma)
