What are the problems facing young entrepreneurship education

 

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND VOCATIONAL TRAINING AUTHORITY HQRS

By Christian Gaya:  Business Times
Moreover, it is known that specialist training for self-employment is not fully integrated in all young entrepreneurship courses. In other cases the objective of young entrepreneurship education is broader, aiming rather to develop soft young entrepreneurial skills and including training for self-employment only in some specific fields of study.

A partial lack of competence of teachers of young entrepreneurship is in many cases perceived as a problem, at least as regards their practical experience of young entrepreneurship if not their theoretical knowledge. Improvement is greatly needed in this area. It is also known that some training courses on young entrepreneurship are offered to teachers, but few offer a systematic approach.

There seem to be no major administrative obstacles to cooperation between schools and enterprises, and this type of cooperation is generally well established. Also, the vast majority of people report that it is not too difficult for schools to find young entrepreneurs and business people who will come to the classroom. A positive outcome will depend normally on the proactive initiative of the school or the teacher. So this is not perceived as a major problem in most cases. It can be however difficult to ensure the participation of small and micro enterprises.

There has been a perceived gap in the young entrepreneurship training offered. Therefore, despite some encouraging data, it appears that the uptake and the effectiveness of young entrepreneurship education in Tanzanian vocational schools are still far from being fully satisfactory.

Young entrepreneurship is not fully included in all recognized VET courses; school programs still contain too little about business start-ups and young entrepreneurship. Therefore, initial steps have to be taken, for future modernization of VET to systematically include young entrepreneurship. Where vocational qualifications do not cover young entrepreneurship, junior achievement of Tanzania teaches entrepreneurship outside the compulsory curriculum, and does so in a majority of primary, secondary schools and universities.

Non-profit organizations (NGOs) such as Junior Achievement of Tanzania play an important role in organizing young entrepreneurship education in vocational education and training and schools, especially by offering programs based on practical experience and working on projects. They have normally close links with the business world, and often receive some form of support from public authorities and private financial institutions. In particular, existing networks such as Junior Achievement of Tanzania (JAT) promotes widely mini-company or practice firm programs where students have to work on their real or virtual firm. These programs are wide-spread and they are present in all African countries for instance, recently JA reports that 80% of schools in Dar Es Salaam offer students the possibility to create their mini-company).

All in all there should be a need to include young entrepreneurship education as a part of the curricula of schools and colleges teaching technical subjects and business administration, of part-time vocational schools for apprentices, of schools and colleges of tourism, and of colleges of agriculture and forestry. Therefore all VET schools and colleges should include some young entrepreneurship component in the curriculum. In some college curricula, young entrepreneurship and management should be on the other hand a specialist subject area.

Both public and private actors should offer various entrepreneurship activities or projects to complement the traditional education and training system. Since young entrepreneurship is not integrated into the curriculum, so student participation should either only compulsory in some fields of study to start with. Currently for the majority of students, participation is optional. In practice, it is often the teacher or school director who decides whether students participate or not take an example of Dar Es Salaam secondary schools. Most activities or projects are open to all types of schools. Only a few focus on vocational schools.

The challenges for young entrepreneurship programs in vocational education are mostly connected with teaching methods. There should be a wider range of techniques to supplement lectures as the most basic teaching tool. Vocational schools must provide an insight into various forms of employment including young entrepreneurship, to support a career and life plan involving self-employment. All vocational schools have to operate in this context, so young entrepreneurial ways of thinking and acting form part of the established curriculum.