The role of enabling environment in the promotion of entrepreneurship intent of youth in Technical Vocational Education and Training colleges
Date
2020
Authors
Kunene, Hlengiwe N.
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Abstract
The South African government is aiming at using entrepreneurship to address the challenges of chronic youth unemployment and underemployment facing the country. Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges are targeted at remedying this youth unemployment pandemic by imparting skills development training and entrepreneurial education to students as a means of promoting entrepreneurship. Literature reports that skills development and entrepreneurial education can play an important role in driving students’ desires towards entrepreneurship; however, a favourable environment created through policy is required.
The study, therefore, investigated the extent to which the South African environment, focusing on the National Youth Policy and entrepreneurship policies, enables the promotion of entrepreneurial intent among youth at TVET colleges. An enabling environment created for students through the TVET colleges, the ease of embarking upon entrepreneurship in the country, and support structures set up by government to support youth entrepreneurial initiatives were assessed. The skills development and entrepreneurial education imparted by TVET colleges to influence the students’ entrepreneurial intent were included in the study.
Multiple regression was employed for data analysis. Primary data were collected from final-year students, and those students who had completed two or more skills development and entrepreneurship-related modules, in TVET colleges in Gauteng, South Africa. A self-administered seven-point Likert scale questionnaire was distributed, and a sample size of 216 was collected of which 206 were valid for analysis. Findings exhibited that an enabling environment, skills development, and entrepreneurial education positively influenced the entrepreneurial intent of students in TVET colleges, though this effect was minimal.
The study therefore recommended that entrepreneurial education and skills development policies should seek to provide an encouraging entrepreneurial
environment in order for entrepreneurship to be an attractive option for students and must ensure alignment of the TVET system to the South African developmental state.
Description
A research report submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management in Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Wits Business School, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2020
Keywords
VET sector in South Africa, entrepreneurship, Technical Vocational Education and Training, South African environment