Across
Africa, there is a growing trend of programs promoting entrepreneurship as the
silver bullet to many of the continent’s challenges. Pitch competitions are
many and varied, each one targeting a different demographic or segment of
industry: youth, women, creatives, inventors, agro-processors and so on. 



The
expectation and intention is to identify, breed and groom young people who have
developed ideas that can have a catalytic impact on the continent, and to
nurture their dreams and businesses to scale.



However, the pipeline to produce the kind of entrepreneurs that can succeed in enterprise creation that yields proportionate returns in expected areas such as job creation, reduced unemployment and food security is not yet fully developed. 



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/current-affairs/2019/02/02/education-quality-and-the-youth-skills-gap-are-marring-progress-in-africa/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Education Quality and the Youth Skills Gap Are Marring Progress in Africa (opens in a new tab)">Education Quality and the Youth Skills Gap Are Marring Progress in Africa</a>



Africa’s
schools are still prioritizing rote learning, theory over practice, and
outdated curricula that do not respond to the changing needs of the job market,
and few to no schools teach entrepreneurship to young people. 



Across
Africa, as the economies fail to create enough jobs for the over 10 million
young people entering the workforce each year, enterprise development remains
the best pathway to creating employment and ensuring sustainable livelihoods,
yet few governments have mainstreamed entrepreneurship education into their
curricula.



Mainstreaming
entrepreneurship education holds a key to job creation, not just through
self-employment, but as a small enterprise employing others. If each young
entrepreneur establishes an enterprise that creates at least five new jobs,
that can move the needle on youth unemployment across the continent. 



In order to do that, we need to focus on curricula that are practical and practice-able. We need to teach young people not just how things are made but how to make things. They need to learn not just how things are done, but how to do things.



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Mass
entrepreneurship, a concept which has been experimented within India, has had
some success. 



Delivering
this kind of change in education systems needs a systematic overhaul of
existing educational approaches. 



After all,
the question remains: can teachers successfully teach entrepreneurship? And if
so, can they do it effectively? 



Few models
exist on the continent or elsewhere that can be replicated. Theoretical
learning is still a dominant pedagogy, whereas evidence exists that
experiential education is the most effective approach.



Business education predominantly begins at the tertiary level, even though less than 10% of Africa’s high school graduates go on to university, according to the World Bank. 



If students are entering the job market after high school and becoming entrepreneurs by default rather than by design, they need to be equipped earlier on how to run businesses in order to increase their chances of success. 



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">The word ‘entrepreneurial’ still mystifies many young people. The notion that all youth will start and run a business is largely a false premise. </blockquote>



Redefining
what it means to be entrepreneurial can be a key lever of change; being
entrepreneurial is not just about enterprise-creation but about mindset change.




It is about
thinking entrepreneurially and being solutions-oriented. Reorienting young
people from a foundation of profit-making to that of problem-solving is what
sets apart successful entrepreneurs from day dreamers. 



Starting
that education early, systematically and at scale, is key. 



– Elizabeth Bintliff the Accra-based CEO of Junior Achievement Africa, an organization focusing on youth empowerment.

Tag: curricula

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African Curricula That Mean Business