Strategically position entrepreneurship and Innovation as the fulcrum of sustainable job creation in Ghana

Entrepreneurship and innovation remain a backbone of Ghana’s formal and informal sectors, offering jobs, income, and livelihood opportunities for millions of people.

Entrepreneurship has been with us since time immemorial. Except that the way it was done in the past has undergone various transformation in terms of the integration of creativity, innovation, investment, risk management, and profitability, among others. Entrepreneurship has many beneficial effects on entrepreneurs themselves.

Today many live much fulfilled lives, with dreams that seemed impossible some years ago, becoming realities. Entrepreneurship has positioned entrepreneurs to contribute to social and economic development.

Nonetheless, challenges such as Globalization, the influx of cheap goods into the market, unfavourable economic conditions, among others, serve as barriers to entrepreneurship.

The traditional ways of teaching and learning where notes are prepared from textbooks, transferred to class books, and then to examination papers, have not helped with creativity and innovation and thus, are gradually giving way to more student centered and innovative learning where students are prepared, equipped and empowered with logical, critical, analytical, quantitative and qualitative skills for effective analysis of issues, choices, decision making, and career development.

Therefore, further transformation must take place as we seek to mainstream the contributions of entrepreneurship and innovation into job creation, society and the economy.

This is crucial as the world of work has become very dynamic with the Advent of AI and other technological innovations. Secondly, job opportunities in the formal sectors are not in alignment with the number of graduates produced annually from our tertiary institutions. Thus, making entrepreneurship an important opportunity.

This means that institutions have to reconsider and retool their entrepreneurship and innovation programmes, training, courses, subjects, activities, and other relevant resources to respond to the changing times and circumstances in the world of work.

Today’s generation, popularly known as generation Z, easily becomes demotivated and disengaged with teaching methods that are founded not on real world and life experiences.

Thus, the knowledge, skills, abilities, and competences that these students acquire should be channeled into self-empowerment and self-driven initiatives that inspire commitment and dedication to create something novel, innovative or useful for the world.

Many problems we see around today are actually sources of potential entrepreneurship or business creation opportunities.

In order to help young graduates and professionals to transition properly into the entrepreneurship space, we need to equip them with skills or empower them to develop competencies which enable: curiosity and inquisition, creativity and innovation, adoption of new ways of analysing issues, willingness to accept mentorship and coaching, apprenticeship or understudying experts, rebranding of old solutions, seeing problems no longer as nuisance but opportunities for creating solutions to make money, willingness to start, and commit to the journey, networking with the community of practice, and to have an eye for identifying opportunities, among others.

Young entrepreneurs have to build hands-on skills and capacity to take advantage of emerging opportunities in the national and global economies.

An entrepreneurial mindset and supportive environment should be strategically and intentionally created to encourage young people to be confident about doing something for themselves.

Leaving entrepreneurship and innovation on autopilot and expecting great things of it may forever remain a mirage.

Thus, key stakeholders-educators, industry, and individuals all have a responsibility to play. To fully take advantage of the evolving renewed consciousness, the way forward is that: parents should encourage their wards to be creative and innovative, entrepreneurship should be incorporated into the curriculum early.

Entrepreneurship should be accorded the same weight as other activities, business plan development and business creation should go alongside project work, for business students especially.

In order for students to be strategically positioned in the entrepreneurship ecosystem, Academic institutions should allocate some proportion of their income to create the entrepreneurial ecosystem that is required by their students. Tertiary institutions should prioritise the creation and maintenance of entrepreneurship incubators and hubs.

Tertiary institutions should create Entrepreneurship Endowment Funds supported by the Alumni Associations. Entrepreneurial components should also be integrated into teaching and learning of different courses, Government should create more funding schemes for start-ups, industry should create opportunity for internship and mentorship for our students.

This can be achieved through intentional partnerships between academia and industry.

Annual internships should be built into the deployment of different programmes in tertiary institutions.

As an individual, to strategically position yourself as an emerging entrepreneur, you should: know what the market needs, identify opportunities, process viable ideas into innovations, acquire basic knowledge in entrepreneurship, venture creation, and management.

In addition, start the business, develop your understanding in the search, use, and management of money, marketing skills, selling skills, and commit to progressive excellence and continuous improvement.

Turn your network to wealth, consider potential partnership seriously; learn from those who have made it in your space, and read about them, if possible, talk to them, commit to lifelong learning, introducing innovation and making it a lifestyle.

Be inspired, self-motivated, be hopeful, consistent, but adaptable to the changing times, and strive to remain relevant in the market.

Entrepreneurship initiatives, indeed hold many good prospects for socio-economic development.

However, governments and relevant key stakeholders bear significant responsibilities in ensuring that the appropriate entrepreneurial mind-set and climate is created to encourage entrepreneurial initiatives, create jobs and wealth. Entrepreneurship is truly an important channel for addressing graduate unemployment in the country.

Initiatives and programmes to see entrepreneurs through, from opportunity recognition to venture creation should be strengthened. In particular, a lot needs to be done in the area of funding, efficient, and effective management of start-ups and emerging ventures.

The government, industry and academia, should continue in their efforts to create a conducive atmosphere for more start-ups to thrive and strategically and intentionally position entrepreneurship as the fulcrum of sustainable job creation while mobilizing and coordinating the required resources for success. Ultimately, we need to turn graduates from job seekers to job creators.