'Classroom entrepreneurship' not enough for job creation – NBU

The No Business As Usual Project has warned that the ultimate goals of embedding a mandatory entrepreneurship course in all disciplines in tertiary institutions would fail to deliver the much-anticipated jobs if the courses do not reflect evolving trends.

According to the European Union-funded youth empowerment and community development project, entrepreneurship lectures remain rote, with little expression of practicality and modern ways of running and sustaining businesses.

As part of its Ignite Series, the NBU Project has begun challenging the status quo by collaborating with tertiary institutions, to bring onboard practical tailor-made content to their entrepreneurship lectures.

Speaking at the Garden City University College in the Ashanti region where some 350 students joined the seminar, Training Coordinator Shaibu Fuseini expressed worry, the high graduate unemployment in Ghana is likely to soar if entrepreneurship education remains a mere course requirement.

The training covered innovative areas and sources of raising start-up capital, crafting workable business ideas, management and sustainability of startups and leveraging on creative co-creation to survive in today’s entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Shaibu told Ultimate News: “I am a beneficiary of the Ghanaian education system and I can tell you it was all theory. Things have not changed much but that is the status quo that the No Business As Usual Project is trying to challenge.”

Marketing and Entrepreneurship lecturer with the Garden City University College Isaac Tweneboah Koduah pointed out that several business start ups are running aground because entrepreneurs have not taken time to study Enterprise Development Skills needed to run their businesses.

“How do you write a business plan? How do you get customers?…….That’s marketing; How do you take care of your customers…….That’s Customer Service; How do you take care of the money that comes into the business?…That’s accounting. How do you get people to work with? That’s Human Resource Management; how do you set your business to run on autopilot such that with or without you, it will run? That is Systems and Operations Management. These are skills that anyone who needs to run a business needs to have,” he explained.

The Business Advisory Centre Head of the Bosomtwe District, Isha Adoma Brobey took students through several opportunities that business incubation hubs, co-working spaces and online platforms present to budding youthful businesses.

The No Business As Usual Hub, an offshoot of the SOS Villages is embarking on a series of initiatives collaborating with the Asokore Mampong Municipal Assembly, to train youth in entrepreneurship and employability skills while linking them to opportunities for advancement.