The essence of ensuring entrepreneurship becomes a national policy taught in schools

Defining Entrepreneurship and records of unemployment Rates:

Entrepreneurship is the idea of setting up a personal business/es after haven considered and decided to take on financial risk by envisaging and having the hopes of making profits from such business.

An individual with an entrepreneurial mindset does not solely depend on government provided jobs nor the white colored jobs of strictly completing tertiary and supplying application letters, embarking on fasting and prayers to be called for an interview.

According to a report released this year, it indicated that More than 1.2 million persons from 15 years and older are estimated to be unemployed, representing the total unemployment rate of 11.9%, according to the Labour Force Survey Report. Of this number, about 714,916 are females, representing 57.2 per cent and 535,997 for males representing 42.8%. (source: myjoyonline.com).

Also Data from the Institute of Statistics, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) of the University of Ghana, has revealed that only 10 per cent of graduates find jobs after their first year of completing school.

The data also indicated that, it may take up to 10 years for a large number of graduates to secure employment due to varied challenges that ranged from the lack of employable skills, unavailability of funding capital for entrepreneurship, poor attitudes of graduates towards job opportunities, as well as the low capacities of industry to absorb the huge numbers.

The Challenge with Our education System:

I am very much bemoaned about this situation and strongly feel there is an easy way to this through the Government making entrepreneurship a national agenda and implementing a policy which will ensure that, entrepreneurship becomes a compulsory subject taught from the primary school just as English is taught as a subject.

Already, some Universities and professional bodies have started by introducing Entrepreneurship as a subject to descry the essence of the program and to influence their enthusiasm of becoming their own bosses after studying the program.

Currently, because there are limited jobs available and supply of labor increases each period, it puts a greater pressure on these available jobs and goes further to frustrate these new graduates. Most of the graduates become unfit for the job market after completing school due to some the programs offered in schools.

On the other hand, some of these graduates also gets employed in a field different from their field of study leading to misallocation of intelligence. It becomes quite bemusing to realize individuals searching for employment even in departments they have no knowledge of, a problem which has emanated from unemployment because the government has not built enough industries to absorb new graduates each year.

We can argue the above points by saying “education from the primary to the tertiary level is meant to nurture the individual to thinking critically and applying his intelligence regardless of the field” but we can’t also dispute the essence of entrepreneurship looking at the trend of the current economy in the face of limited jobs.

The curriculum of the schools can be amended right from the primary school level to courses undertaken at the tertiary level where entrepreneurship will be included and taught as a compulsory subject just as English is a compulsory subject taught in almost all of our schools.

By so doing, it will instill the idea and interest of doing own business into the minds of the younger ones right from the primary school.

Why Entrepreneurship:

The purpose of this paper is to provide an alternative means of reducing unemployment in the future to promote individual and nationwide growth. One necessary means of doing this is by introducing entrepreneurship as a subject to be studied in schools from the beginning of a child’s education.

This will equip the individual to confidently start his/her own business after completing tertiary. The tertiary education is only meant to equip an individual to properly manage himself or his business, however, adding entrepreneurship as a training tool will enhance the individual’s ability to start self-business.

I know quite a number of university graduates who studied sociology, psychology, linguistics, economics etc and have engaged themselves in different fields after school including hairdressing, tailoring, catering etc. This indicates clearly that when entrepreneurship is given greater attention, it will help to first of all create jobs for our new graduates.

The student is already conscious of the situation in the labor market so he/she is already certain and aware of the business to do after school. Secondly, it creates comfortability and convenience as the individual is given the opportunity to do what he/she loves best instead of carrying CV’s around in search of jobs and eventually getting employed in a company he may not like.

Furthermore, in general, this agenda will help to promote increased productivity. If a greater percentage of the nation’s labor force are doing their own businesses and producing, collectively, it would help to increase the overall production of the country and curb down prices as well.

Lastly, this activity will facilitate an increase in the country’s GDP as well as individual profits.

In a way, it will help to also increase future wages since a greater proportion of the labor force are doing their own businesses leaving few people who would supply their labor. Since demand for labor may exceed its supply, it will force wages to increase.

As a way of ensuring nation growth and future individual development, I recommend entrepreneurship is considered as a national policy included in the syllabus as a subject taught right from primary school.

it will nurture the young ones to establishing their own businesses to gradually dissipate unemployment in the future and promote sustained economic development.