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By Navindu Deeptha Kalansuriya
It is a well-known fact that Sri Lanka’s foreign income account has remained in the deficit status for a long period. This issue has persisted with Sri Lanka for several decades and the governments that have come into power from time to time have not been able to provide a sustainable solution for this issue.
Certain highly-rated economists in Sri Lanka have constantly said that Sri Lanka should encourage foreign investments yet a greater focus should be rendered on home-grown entrepreneurship. Governments have proceeded in rendering foreign investments however the foreign income account remains at deficit as there is a lack of encouragement to starting and developing home-grown enterprises
Sri Lanka is widely regarded as a country that does not have an effective practice of entrepreneurship, mainly due to the lethargic mentality Sri Lankans have towards entrepreneurship. Further rarely is one interested in developing his or her own business to support Sri Lanka’s economic and financial stability and this could be due to a myriad of reasons. Hence, it is imperative that this attitudinal change should be stimulated from the grass root level.
Inculcating the concept of entrepreneurship is something to do with the attitudes of students and it is teachers who should play a vital role in instilling this mindset in young kids. During pre-school and Grade 1 students are required to give a speech about themselves. During that speech, most students say that they aspire to become doctors, engineers, lawyers, etc.
What if teachers can train students to say that they would like to become an entrepreneur? I believe it will change the attitudes of most of the students to think in a different dimension from the start. They will be inquisitive to know what an entrepreneur does if their teacher could impress them thus, I am positive that most students would take home the aspiration of becoming an entrepreneur one day.
The ongoing curriculum in Sri Lanka’s national school system offers the subject of entrepreneurial studies as a bucket subject from Grade 10 for the students who are preparing for the GCE O/L examination. Students are exposed to the subject only for two years where they study the theoretical aspects of entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurial studies should be made a compulsory subject from Grade 1. Thus, it must be simplified in such a way that students of respective age groups could understand the basic concepts of the subject.
There is no doubt learning theory is imperative to grab the basics of any subject. But it is the practice of the subject which cements the theory learned. This norm bears no difference when it comes to learning entrepreneurship which is considered as a subject with a deep and an exciting practical aspect.
Students have no exposure to the practical aspects of the subject. Therefore, whatever knowledge they gain is limited within the time/resources provided for the subject as students emphasises on gaining a good grade rather than incorporating entrepreneurship as practical skill for the future. It is high time schools use their facilities to cater to teach said practical aspects.
A good education system consists of three main aspects. They are namely,
1) Development of Know-ledge
2) Development of attitudes
3) Development of skills of hand
Unfortunately, the Sri Lankan education system focuses more on knowledge development, whilst both attitude development and development of skills of hand have been taken lightly or neglected. There are two reasons for this.
The first reason is that students are not interested in learning subjects such as entrepreneurship since more emphasis is given to core subjects. The second is that there is lack of time for students to learn such skills within the actual time spent at school. Therefore, it’s the right time that the educationists consider extending the time that a student spends in the school.
The six hours they spend in school ought to be extended at least by another two hours and students should be persuaded to learn subjects such as carpentry, electronics, motor mechanics and other vocational subjects. This would enable students to have different capabilities and become well-rounded personalities once they enter the world of work
It’s high time educationists of Sri Lanka come up with sound plans in restructuring the education system by injecting the concept of entrepreneurship in to it. If they do so and execute those plans in the right manner, certain pressing issues in Sri Lanka such as unemployment will deteriorate, especially youth unemployment where well over 30% of Sri Lanka’s youth are unemployed.
The revenue obtained by exporting will automatically increase and the foreign account of Sri Lanka will move away from its deficit status and that will singlehandedly enable Sri Lanka to gain a lot of financial and economic benefits.
Finally, having a sound economy means that the Government has enough time and funds to focus on other social issues and minimising those issues. Therefore, it is crystal clear that developing the concept of entrepreneurship finds solutions not only to the directly-related economic issues but also other issues of society which are linked from distance.
