EFFECTIVE MODELS OF TEACHING ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Paper Presented on the Opening of the GLOBAL INCUBATION DAY
Kenya Polytechnic University College , Nairobi.

By Henry M Thairu
Vice Chancellor Inoorero University,
The ENTERPRISE UNIVERSITY OF KENYA.
8 TH DECEMBER 2009

INTRODUCTION

Definition of entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is the acumen or the ability of seizing opportunities for business creation.

It is also the ability to convert innovations into business entities.

It can also be defined as the ability to identify innovations which can be turned into wealth.

An entrepreneur is a person with the ability to seize the opportunity do so many of the times against many obstacles. He is a person who is not afraid to take risks and to be alone. This requires courage, knowledge, resourcefulness and persistence.

Teaching Entrepreneurship

This is always a debate as to whether entrepreneurs are born or are made. I believe one can acquire the skills and hence be made into one. One can be made an entrepreneur. The debate continues.

My position is that one can develop entrepreneurs through a systematic development of necessary knowledge, skills and experiences .Hence the need of entrepreneurship courses in the education curricula.

How early in life does this need to be done? There is a lot of debate on this.

My personal position is that this should start very early in one’s life. It should actually start in primary school.

I believe in the primary school the subject should not be called entrepreneurship but just creativity. Maybe taught as through computer games and other activities that involve showing how wealth is created.

For example a lot of believe people that we study science and many other subjects to pass examinations or to understand our environment. Of course it is true that we need to pass exams and to understand our environment. But we soon realize that science is important because it gives individuals , companies and countries that embrace it tremendous power of creating wealth. That is why a lot of money is invested in research.

Through research new knowledge is created , this is converted into innovations which provide tremendous opportunities for entrepreneurs to convert them into viable business, offering either services or products.

Why Africa poor and America is very rich country. Africa depends on export of primary products whose prices are determined by the rich countries. It has not created the capacity to convert its natural resources to products or services of higher value that can compete in the world market.

On the other hand America, over the years has created purposely the ability to convert all the products it has and imports into useful services and goods that can compete favorably in the world market. The final product of entrepreneurship is world trade. Africa is poor because it participates very lowly in the world trade. Just about 1%. This need to increase.

The purpose of teaching entrepreneurship in our schools and universities is to create that entrepreneurial capacity in sufficient numbers. It is entrepreneurs who have that capacity to create wealth. That is what businesses all about.

Entrepreneurship is also a methodology of connecting what we study with the productive cycle that produces goods and services which people will need and hence pay for. So entrepreneurs have the knack of identifying what a particular society needs and then finds way to provide this.

HOW DO WE NEED TO TEACH ENTREPRENEURSHIP?

Practises:

1. Introduction of entrepreneurship courses in the curriculum at various levels. This has been done in several universities where some entrepreneurship courses have been introduced to enable students have an appreciation of how business are conducted. These courses would normally give students knowledge and skills of business plan writing, accounts compilation, marketing and some basic finance. This is mostly done through lectures but the students miss the real life experience of risks , venture capital ,Sourcing of funds and real stock exchange knowledge. The students have to figure later on how this knowledge is to be applied in the field of work.
2. Some universities have offered Entrepreneurship courses at Masters l and PhD levels where the coverage of entrepreneurship courses is much higher and gives the scope of developing a much wider scope of entrepreneurial experience. Unfortunately a lot people who go through these courses do not end as entrepreneurs. They end mostly in teaching and some are absorbed in the microfinance world.
We need to see more as entrepreneurs.
3. The third model , is the incubation model which seeks to impart not only the skills and knowledge but the actual methodology of applying the knowledge so gained to initiating real business in a protected environment . This protected environment is called an incubator. Most universities have shied from this model. This is because it is more challenging to run and the necessary skills set are very few. The few that exist like KEKOBI are not given the necessary support and encouragement. This is the model that has real capacity of creating the future entrepreneurs of Kenya.

We need to see more business incubators in the Universities as a practical demonstration of entrepreneurship taught in the classroom. Incubators should be part of the learning experience. Students should be challenged and taught how to start real businesses. They must understand what risk is, and how to deal with it.

They must know how to source for finance. Not through lectures but in the real sense.

Conclusion

The Business Incubators Association presence needs to be felt a little more than now .It needs to carry out an education campaign on the merits of adopting the incubation model and actually teaching it.

More Universities need not only have the incubators developed in their campuses but also create KTPs , knowledge transfer partnerships for facilitating transfer of knowledge, skills and innovations to industry through a partnership model. But more of that another time.