Integrating entrepreneurship in education: An imperative for the change we want

To build an entrepreneurial culture, it is necessary to fundamentally alter traditional strategies and teaching methods in such a way that learning takes on new meaning

“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do,” said Steve Jobs, an American entrepreneur, best known as the co-founder of Apple. His passion for innovative ideas and thoughts led Apple Inc., to become the most valuable technology company setting the world a good example of how a creative mind can change the world. Like Steve Jobs, entrepreneurs are assets to any society as they have the potential to spread their wings over the globe to take a country to a wealthy destination where the community can enjoy the comfort they need.

When we consider the current economic crisis in Sri Lanka, moving forward with an export-oriented manufacturing economy is recognised as a sustainable solution to emerge from it. For that to happen, our country needs to provide local industries with all the necessary prospects for a proper transition by creating a conducive environment for businesses, generating more entrepreneurs in the system, and building an entrepreneurial culture. Entrepreneurship is perceived to be a major source of innovation, job creation, and growth and is recognised as a measure of a country’s economic health. 

Department of Labour statistics reports that 2.8% of the Sri Lankan labour force are entrepreneurs. This is a meagre value compared to our neighbour countries with rapid economic growth. For example, entrepreneurship percentages in India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Thailand are 14%, 11%, 19%, and 28.5% respectively. High entrepreneurship ratios in those fastest-growing economies show that our value is insufficient to fuel the country’s economic growth. Accordingly, Sri Lanka needs at least a fivefold increase in entrepreneurs for thrusting the nation forward by creating new wealth, and employment. 

Sri Lanka does not have enough entrepreneurs in the country mainly due to the poor cultural recognition of the importance of entrepreneurship in our society. The significant influence of Sri Lankan parents on their children to choose socially recognised professions, the predominant emphasis of the need for affiliation over achievement and power by the culture and the education system that is not designed to generate entrepreneurs or to motivate entrepreneurial mindset in the society together resulted in an insufficient number of entrepreneurs in the country. 

As a result, the Government had to become the biggest economically nonviable job provider by expanding the employment opportunities ineffectively creating an unbearable burden on the system. Therefore, we must resolve these deep-rooted issues by carefully removing the roadblocks that prevent young children from becoming entrepreneurs long before they start their careers to support economic growth.

Entrepreneurship Education (EE) is one of the most successful approaches to achieving an Entrepreneurial “culture”. To build an entrepreneurial culture, it is necessary to fundamentally alter traditional strategies and teaching methods in such a way that learning takes on new meaning. The formula for successful cultural adaptation to “Entrepreneurship” cannot be achieved solely by introducing EE to education curricula as it requires participation, inclusion, sharing, and support across all community stakeholder groups. This article highlights our plans for cultivating an entrepreneurial mindset in society through education.

Industry entrepreneurship circles

The first and immediate short-term attempt made was the introduction of industry entrepreneurship circles to the national school system. The Industrial Development Board, the Ministry of Industry, and the Ministry of Education jointly organise this to direct schools to empower entrepreneurial mindset among school children and to generate self-reliant future entrepreneurs. One day, they will actively and effectively contribute to national production creating more employment opportunities for society by responding to the challenges and turning them into commercial opportunities. 

Members of industry entrepreneurship circles are expected to acquire entrepreneurial skills through various activities, and they will be awarded and recognised with different medals from the Pilot Badge to the President’s Medal through a series of badges/medals in between as the skills progress. Students from grades 9 to 13 are eligible to participate in entrepreneurship circles and one circle should consist of 15-25 children. To date, school industry entrepreneurship circles have been successfully established in more than 400 schools with the active participation of 13,000 students covering every district and educational zone and are expected to be implemented in 5,000 schools across the island in the next two years.

In this short period since the implementation of this project on 27 June 2023, school principals, teachers, students, and parents have reported significant positive results of bringing an entrepreneurial spirit into the schools by way of improved student attitude and behaviour.

Soon, this concept will be introduced as industry entrepreneurship clubs to universities, other higher education institutes, and vocational training institutes with a broader concept. By doing so, we expect to attract at least 10% of the graduate population in Sri Lanka to become entrepreneurs and support the country’s economy by catalysing transformative advancements.

Curriculum changes

The education system should cultivate entrepreneurial qualities in students by changing their attitudes and behaviours to encapsulate how entrepreneurs tend to think and act to identify and capitalise on opportunities, change course when needed, and view mistakes as an opportunity to learn and improve. Our current education system has generally prevented the development of nascent entrepreneurs because it teaches young people to observe, reproduce information, and seek employment once completing school. The only teaching practice that helps develop entrepreneurial attitudes and behaviour is through business-related subjects, economics, and accounting. There is also no high-level strategy in place to focus on integrating the elements associated with entrepreneurship into other subject areas in the secondary school system.

We, the Industrial Development Board (IDB) and the Ministry of Industries with the Ministry of Education and the National Institute of Education, Sri Lanka are working together to incorporate entrepreneurship concepts into the education curriculums intending to go some way toward addressing the development of entrepreneurial talent starting from secondary education to higher education. It is expected to introduce entrepreneurship as a subject to the advanced level curriculum in the short run and as an independent subject stream in the medium run. Not only that, but we also identified directions for designing entrepreneurship education programs alongside extra-curricular activities with a contextual emphasis on the importance of entrepreneurial “culture” through factory visits with a well-structured plan by exposing students to a rich entrepreneurial community.

A practice-based entrepreneurship faculty, entrepreneurship departments in other faculties, and business incubation centres are also among the focus. Introducing entrepreneurship departments in other faculties, in contrast to the traditional education system, aims to provide students an opportunity to associate with different backgrounds, interests, opinions, and qualities and with the ability to recognise opportunities in different dimensions.

Sustainable Entrepreneurship Development Access (SEDA) program

Annually, we conduct a series of technology transfer and entrepreneurship training (>5000 per annum) to nurture existing entrepreneurs. In addition, we designed SEDA start-up and scale-up, two short-term programs, to cultivate the entrepreneurial mindset in society. 

The SEDA start-up, a seven-day program, consists of seven practical study modules on generating entrepreneurship and business ideas, market planning, organising, and managing a business, costing, financial planning, startup capital requirement, and types and sources of startup capital. It can be completed at any level of any higher education program followed by a three-month apprenticeship program. The SEDA scale-up is a five-day program designed to provide the grounding, self-confidence, and other challenging opportunities required to scale up the size of the existing businesses. 

This program consists of six study modules on business leadership and entrepreneurial skill development, marketing, costing, strategic business planning, financial management, and the role of business. In the short run, we expect to offer these two programs to all interested social cohorts. In the long run, we aim to popularise them as a custom in higher education institutes to be achieved by age 25 and pushed forward by society as a recognised career development path.

Impressions of society about entrepreneurship can, directly and indirectly, influence the entrepreneurial activity of a country. If a society has a better perception, there are better chances that more entrepreneurs, investors, and organisations want to take the risk to undertake and support entrepreneurs. Therefore, there is a real need to develop an entrepreneurship culture in Sri Lanka by nurturing, encouraging, and supporting entrepreneurs to unleash their full potential.

Not only education, but this also requires the participation and involvement of all social cohorts including Government, media, and existing entrepreneurs.

The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated to us that an entrepreneurial mindset is the key to addressing today’s problems. We responded to the pandemic by adapting to risk, spotting opportunities, taking initiatives, communicating, and collaborating, being flexible, and problem-solving. We can simply say that all these are part of the entrepreneurial mindset. Therefore, let’s equip our young generation to handle tomorrow’s challenges by instilling this way of thinking so that they will be ready to identify and take advantage of future opportunities.

(The writer is the Chairman, Industrial Development Board and could be reached via email at [email protected].)