Promoting entrepreneurship education for accelerated economic development
Today, possessing knowledge and having the ability to drive transformation is critical for personal and societal advancement.
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Likewise, having skills globally related to entrepreneurship education is perhaps the most important ingredient to any organisation's competitiveness.
Any entity that does not support an environment that attracts, sustains and retains creative, imaginative and globally resourceful individuals will eventually fall behind.
The inability of graduates of the educational system to contribute meaningfully to the economic development of a nation by being self-employed is what informed the promotion of entrepreneurship education in schools.
The call for the introduction of entrepreneurship education in schools is an indication of its importance in job creation in particular.
Thus, entrepreneurship education has become necessary as the country continues to churn out graduates that are hardly self-reliant but solely dependent on public sector jobs.
Strategies and policies
Entrepreneurship education policy is closely interlinked with overall entrepreneurship strategies as well as economic and social development objectives.
It should be therefore, reflected in a country’s national economic and social development plans or strategies.
It is a lifelong learning process, starting as early as elementary school and continuing through all levels of education, including adult education.
It should build positive attitudes towards business and develop entrepreneurial competencies to successfully plan, start and manage a business.
To effectively implement entrepreneurship education, both top down and bottom up approaches are necessary.
Top down approaches require the commitment of the most senior policymakers. Most often entrepreneurship education has to be framed within the context of its contribution to economic and social growth to attract the proper attention.
Bottom up approaches require champions at the local or regional level who can help drive initiatives on the ground.
In designing policy approaches to entrepreneurship education, it is also important to recognise the type of entrepreneurship and to make a distinction between “opportunity” and “necessity” entrepreneurship.
Given the high rates of necessity entrepreneurship in developing countries (informal and micro-entrepreneurial activity), it is important to establish policies which cannot only help transition successful necessity entrepreneurs (often with low levels of formal education) into opportunity entrepreneurs (with social and basic business skills necessary to run their own small business), but also encourage more high-growth-oriented entrepreneurs.
This often means that coordination on entrepreneurship education policy between ministries within a country is critical.
The launch of a national strategy for entrepreneurship education should call for the active involvement of all relevant actors and define concrete actions for the inclusion of entrepreneurship into national curriculums, providing support to schools and teachers, and should encourage the involvement of private partners through funding and contributions in kind for entrepreneurship and business development.
Importance
This first sends a strong and clear message about the importance of entrepreneurship education, while the latter ensures that it is treated as an integral part of the long-term educational system rather than as a stand-alone and potentially short-term initiative.
Various entrepreneurship education policies may be associated with different policy objectives, with different ministries taking the leading role.
In a number of countries, issues of coordination have been dealt with by setting up a working group that includes representatives from various ministries and also from other stakeholder groups such as business, academia, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
In addition, a high-level office to coordinate entrepreneurship education policies across ministries is often useful, which can help to facilitate the development of a more comprehensive entrepreneurship education strategy and set of policies.
In developing countries, it is important to integrate entrepreneurship education into the overall poverty reduction strategy.
Entrepreneurship education policy should often be coordinated by the education ministries in collaboration with other related stakeholders.
In some developed countries, the government has initiated a strategy for education and training in entrepreneurship with specific goals.
All of this work comes under a new foundation for entrepreneurship, which plays a key role in teacher training, curriculum reforms and the assessment of entrepreneurship education.
A partnership initiative between the public and private sectors is also a key pillar of the entrepreneurship education strategy.
Conclusion and recommendations
Entrepreneurial education is desirable and should be pursued with the necessary vigour and political will.
This is particularly in view of the prevailing poverty across African countries and the declining public confidence in the education sector to redress the situation.
It is obvious that economic empowerment and development cannot take place if there is no proper implementation of entrepreneurship education programmes.
Based on this, the following recommendations are therefore necessary in ensuring economic empowerment and development.
There should be adequate funding and financing of entrepreneurship education programme by government at all levels in order for the objectives and goals of the programme to be realised.
The government should make accessible loans available for graduates of the programme so as to start up their businesses.
The society, particularly the youth, should be encouraged to embrace entrepreneurship education or training in order for them to become self-reliant and wealth creators.
There should be uniformity in the curriculum offerings in the various institutions that are saddled with the teaching and learning of this education.
Furthermore, there should be adequate provision of necessary resources (human and materials) needed to fully execute the programme.
The writer is a PhD candidate, University of Ghana ([email protected])
