Speaking at the 1st Afro Entrepreneurship Education Summit in Abuja, Ms Oluwakemi Ann-Melody Areola @vivacitypr said that Entrepreneurship education can be said to focus on the development of skills or attributes that enables the realization of opportunity, where management education is focused on the best way to operate existing hierarchies. Both approaches share an interest in achieving “profit” in some form (which in non-profit organizations or government can take the form of increased services or decreased cost or increased responsiveness to the customer/citizen/client).
Africa has a high unemployment rate and sluggish economic growth. It’s time to consider what our academic institutions can do to reduce unemployment and to help the poor – by taking what they do best (education) and applying it to one of the most effective mechanisms for economic growth and empowerment (entrepreneurship).
Africa’s economies are not creating as many jobs as the schools are graduating students. Every year, approximately 11 million young people enter the workforce, competing for approximately 3 million jobs created. The gap of 8 million is wide and growing. Consequently, it takes an average young person up to six years to find their first job.
In order to cope with this reality young people often become entrepreneurs by default, rather than by design. To help these young entrepreneurs to be successful in business, it is important that they receive the tools, skills and knowledge that they need to understand business.
Entrepreneurship is an important avenue for job creation outside the formal economy as well. There is a missing middle in the conversation around entrepreneurship in Nigeria. In order to solve the employment problem in Nigeria, mass entrepreneurship will have to be a significant part of the solution. Given the low levels of investment, there is a significant opportunity to support mass entrepreneurship to provide better jobs and livelihoods to many people.