Why Should Entrepreneurship Be Part Of Secondary Education?

Our education system is responsible for preparing young minds to build successful lives. It should be robust enough to prepare students for the myriad of possibilities ahead of them, including working for others, starting their own enterprises, and contributing to their communities. Therefore, it’s high time when institutions should bring entrepreneurship at the centerpiece of secondary education.

Why Entrepreneurship?

Entrepreneurship not only helps create employment but also grooms perfect and skillful employees. It focuses on developing real-world skills that will help students to lead exceptional lives in a rapidly changing world.

Teaching entrepreneurship from the school level has become even more important in today’s world as the future evidently belongs to the graduates of the startup world. In fact, several recent surveys have defined the importance of encouraging entrepreneurship and creating a globally skilled and competitive workforce through a strong education system.

Moreover, teaching entrepreneurship from the secondary level of education would be the long-range blueprint for the most ambitious Make in India campaign and will also contribute to the #AtmanirbharBharat.

Read on to find out the traits that children adopt by being exposed to entrepreneurship.

Ethics And Values

No matter how bright is your academic journey or how many degrees you hold, without ethics and values, people fail to adorn success. Our education system still fails to imbibe concepts and values such as respect, empathy, veracity, honesty, integrity, morality in students. With the introduction of entrepreneurship, the students will get to practice all the aforementioned points, organically.

For a successful career, it is crucial to have the foundation of ethics and values.

Self-Motivation

We live in a busy world. We cannot rely on somebody else to spare time to motivate us, it has come from within ourselves. Similarly, in the world of entrepreneurship, you cannot afford to resort to the person next to you for motivation, it remains to be your job. Our children must possess this trait of self-motivation. It is our job to teach our children to be independent – be it in the area of motivation or career opportunities.

Adaptability

Not that the new norm of learning would transform the entire populace into entrepreneurial wizards, but most would certainly appreciate a few things better than what the previous generation did — as they will adapt to the concepts of versatility design thinking, and multi-tasking, collaborative skills, co-creational abilities and cultural expertise.

Moreover, today the economy tends to be highly unpredictable. In this era of the pandemic, we should teach our children how to go through the throes of uncertainties, and adapt to the changes, as it is going to help them to survive and thrive. Here the entrepreneurship education plays a major role. As a subject, it teaches students to adapt and come up with appropriate solutions for the success of their business. Adaptability is one of the major skills to be honed as an individual to make the mark in the entrepreneurial world.

People Skills

Education in the area of entrepreneurship will help students to develop people skills and knowledge, which could assist them in starting, organizing and managing their own ventures.

People skills define your success. How well do you interact with people? How accurately are you able to communicate certain information? How do you delegate jobs to your subordinates? – Everything comes under people’s skills. If you are not doing it right, then there is no way you are going up that ladder.

So, people skills are more valuable than we know. Entrepreneurs are bound to know their way around people. Hence, the introduction of entrepreneurship allows students to exercise people skills right from the school level.

Tenacity

Success comes to those, who don’t lose out on the tenacity. We have got to hold on to our vision until we reach our goal. This is an important lesson to learn and it sits well with those who learn this lesson early in their lives.

The introduction of entrepreneurship teaches many valuable lessons to the children apart from the technique and subject-related concepts. In this world of innovation, it is important to raise our children to be innovators rather than seekers.

Conclusion

Clearly, entrepreneurship is the need of the hour. It advocates innovation, fosters job creation, and foments global competitiveness. Therefore, it’s crucial to introduce entrepreneurship in the secondary education as the traditional K-12 education — the old “chalk and talk,” and regurgitation and bubbling to correct answers — seems like the very nemesis of innovation.

As Albert Einstein once said, “If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.”

Note: We at Inc42 take our ethics very seriously. More information about it can be found here.