“All the funding and risk-taking in the world may not be enough if South Africans lack the basic foundations in education to set them up to be successful“
lt is only fair to admit that South Africa’s noble efforts to eradicate poverty and reduce inequality, amongst so-called Previously Disadvantaged Groups, have fallen short of post-1994 expectations, and a radical change of approach is overdue.
While entrepreneurship has been punted and pushed as one of the solutions, failure of some of the beneficiaries of financial assistance programmes would suggest that more than access to finance and the knack for risk-taking is needed to succeed. Granted, it would be folly to fail to acknowledge the fact that majority of black South Africans on the fringes of the mainstream economy have no access to capital and land.
Introducing entrepreneurial orientation
In the ongoing quest to find gaps in the approach, what has been unearthed is the need to introduce entrepreneurial orientation in the country’s education curriculum from the foundation stage. Hopefully, in the long run, this could address the problem.
Presently, entrepreneurship is administered as a desperate knee-jerk intervention to tackle the crisis of 35% unemployment, medicine to cure chronic unemployment. People are being driven into business as a last resort after retrenchment or failing to find a job after graduating from college, more out of duress than desire.
This is pointed out in a recent report. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor South Africa (GEM SA) 2019/2020 report, found that only 11.9% of local respondents (or one in every eight South Africans) have entrepreneurial intentions of starting a business within the next three years – a stark contrast to the average of 40% on the rest of the continent.
Mindset change
Dr. Kerrin Myres, Associate Professor at the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS), and Mzila Mthenjane, Executive Head of Stakeholder Affairs at Exxaro, call for a mindset change to address the challenge, in their article ‘Empowering entrepreneurs and small businesses to drive their economic growth.” They advance entrepreneurship orientation, through education, both at a school and business level, as be the building block for empowered and successful entrepreneurs.
“First and foremost, we need to be teaching entrepreneurial skills from a young age, educating our children on what is involved in starting a business with entrepreneurial-based courses at school. Parents and teachers have a responsibility here – instead of asking children, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, we should be asking them, “What kind of business are you going to start?” they comment.
“We have been ingrained to believe that being an employee is our only option when we matriculate. It is up to us to show the youth that they are in full control of their destinies and the possibilities are endless.”
Dr Mthanti, a senior lecturer at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business, concurs with the two, contending that basic foundation in education would set entreprenuers up to be successful. In his analysis published on Business Live, he observes, “All the funding and risk-taking in the world may not be enough if South Africans lack the basic foundations in education to set them up to be successful.”
Imperative
Indeed, all told, stakeholders in small business development – including government, the private sector, and non-governmental organisations – have work cut out, more especially in the current economic environment, which is slowly convalescing from effects of the ongoing pandemic. The promotion and empowerment of entrepreneurs and small businesses is imperative. “An entrepreneurial mindset and culture shift starts with business education, skills development, and mentorship, ” Myres and Thingane suggest.
