Entrepreneurship education in East London schools

Abstract

South Africa experiences challenges such as a high unemployment rate, low economic growth and limited entrepreneurial activity when compared with other countries. Entrepreneurship education is regarded as one of the solutions to the challenges faced by South Africa. Although entrepreneurship education was incorporated into the curriculum in South Africa in 2005, the youth tend to prefer corporate careers above pursuing entrepreneurship. The government and private sectors are no longer creating enough jobs to accommodate those who are unemployed, hence entrepreneurship is an option rather than job seeking. The purpose of the study was to examine the approach of facilitating the content of entrepreneurship education to determine if it encourages learners to consider entrepreneurship as a career. The researcher followed a qualitative research methodology using the semi-structured interview on a purposive selected sample of sixteen participants. Two schools from the East London district participated in the study with the Department of Education officials and two organisations that promote entrepreneurship at school level. The study revealed that the majority of the learners prefer corporate careers to entrepreneurship. The study also found that the methods utilised by the educators are not encouraging learners to consider entrepreneurship as a career. The current school system is examination-driven and does not provide sufficient stimulation to support entrepreneurial thinking. The content of the curriculum is adequate but is not practical, and as a result it does not encourage learners to pursue entrepreneurial activities. The study concludes that continuous education and training is required and it should include the support mechanism of coaching and mentoring. The study suggests that experiential learning should be introduced at schools level in collaboration with government and the private sector.