Why EA community should promote young entrepreneurship

By Christian Gaya: Business Times Friday January 4-10, 2013

The development and promotion of young entrepreneurship should be the main strategic objectives of both the East Africa community and Member State policies for now and in future, and it should grow in importance over time, with the East Africa Commission and individual Member States should also adopt a range of measures.

Key amongst these should be the building of a stronger culture of entrepreneurship and 'young entrepreneurial mindsets' of East Africa citizens, particularly young people.

Young entrepreneurship education and training should be taken as the key drivers in this process. All kindergarten children, primary school pupils including secondary schools and high learning students should have an access to young entrepreneurship education, which should be offered in all types and at all levels of education.

There is need to carry out a deliberate pilot action that should bring together senior officials from the ministries of education and enterprise of East Africa Member States along with representatives from stakeholder groups such as business organisations and teachers' trades unions.

The aims should be for reviewing what has been achieved so far in young entrepreneurship education in each participating country, and to discuss the means and ways to develop more systematic approaches to the development and delivery of policy and practice in young entrepreneurship education, as well as to raise the profile of and build momentum behind young entrepreneurship education in national and regional policy.

The mechanism for doing this should be through conducting several workshops, or high level reflection panels, each of which should be attended by ministry officials from clusters of several East African countries, along with representatives from stakeholder bodies.

Important findings issues from the panels should come out with the current state of play in young entrepreneurship education, especially in relation to the development of entrepreneurship education strategies and their implementation.

The high level reflection panels should find a broad consensus between Member States on the aims and objectives of young entrepreneurship education: it should develop both general competences, e.g. self-confidence, adaptability, risk-assessment, creativity, and specific business skills and knowledge. It should no longer be just an extra-curricular activity, but instead be embedded in the curriculum across all educational levels/types.

However, the level of progress that is expected to be made in national strategy development and implementation is required to be highly variable. Perhaps only a minority of countries have well developed strategies.

They should provide typical broad frameworks for action, with the setting of specific targets and indicators being rather under-developed. In general, there is a significant need for Member States to embed and deepen implementation of young entrepreneurship education.

Much young entrepreneurship education practice tends to be ad hoc to some extent, varies vastly in quantity and quality, is not treated systematically in the curriculum, and has relied heavily on the enthusiasm and commitment of individual teachers and schools. Some activity is structured and ambitious; much is not; majority of schools have no young entrepreneurship education at all. There are pockets of excellence, and a number of advanced countries.

Teachers and schools have a critical role, supported by private businesses and non-profit organisations, which may provide resources, and real, practical hands-on experiences. The role of regional and local authorities is highly variable but they can play key roles as promoters and facilitators.

To move young entrepreneurship education from being an extra-curricular 'add-on' to an integral part of the curriculum should involve changes in teaching methods: greater use of experiential learning and a new coach/moderator role for teachers which helps students to become more independent and to take the initiative in their education.

Moreover should also involve changes in the education context, which takes students out of the classroom into the local community and real businesses, and which establishes less hierarchical relationships within schools; and lastly but not least; should involve a key role for governments: only they can bring about the required step change in the spread and quality of young entrepreneurship education.