Entrepreneurship education
for college and university students
By Yuk Fong Chin & Fung
Lan Yong
Published in “Daily Express
Sabah” on January 31, 2016, Page 28
Entrepreneurship
education plays a crucial role in the development of professional skills that
are essential for the economic transformation of Malaysia, which aims to
generate a creative and innovative community to help attain its Vision 2020
goals. Entrepreneurship education in
Malaysia strives to equip college and university graduates with the knowledge
and skills that enable them to accelerate its socioeconomic development. It prepares students to face the challenges
of globalization and initiate innovative business ventures instead of solely relying
on the current job market. Most
importantly, it instils awareness and interest in entrepreneurship, encouraging
students to apply entrepreneurial attributes and values to carve their own
professional destiny in the corporate world.
Increases employment of
fresh graduates
An
effective way to promote innovation and accelerate socioeconomic growth in
Malaysia is to train college and university students to become future
entrepreneurs. Such an initiative will increase
employment of fresh graduates in the private sector, shielding them from a
stagnant job market, while motivating them to create their own jobs. It spurs
them to think outside the box concerning their majors, empowering them to
pursue entrepreneurial career objectives rather than depending on traditional
pathways. Additionally, entrepreneurship
education enables them to weather global recession more effectively as it
teaches them how to earn a living as well as how to live.
Helps create one’s career
path
An
increasing number of fresh graduates in Malaysia have realized that they can no
longer depend on a basic degree to get a job.
Companies nowadays rarely give full-time positions to their interns due
to economic constraints and global competition.
Fresh graduates no longer have a traditional path to grow their career;
hence, they have to be responsible for their own career by creating their own
path.
One
effective way to create one’s career path is by starting a small business or a
side project to gain entrepreneurship experience, which is useful in order to
get entry-level positions. Entrepreneurship
education provides students with opportunities to develop generic attributes or
soft skills in business settings, including interpersonal communication,
teamwork, and leadership skills. Further, graduates with entrepreneurial
experience will become more accountable for their actions, assertive in
communicating with others, and able to execute effective sales skills, besides
bringing fresh perspectives and innovative ideas to the Malaysian workplace.
Entrepreneurship
education enables college and university students to graduate as doers, makers,
and cutting-edge thinkers whom Malaysia needs.
Fresh graduates should be able to create companies that will provide
long-term employment because jobs of the previous generation have become obsolete. Hence, graduates should be innovation-ready
by acquiring critical-thinking, communication, and collaboration skills that
will help them invent their own careers.
Adds value to a diploma or degree
Entrepreneurship
education adds value to a college diploma or university degree, assuring students
that their tertiary investment is worthwhile despite an unpredictable
economy. It instils an entrepreneurial
ethic by requiring students to experience the advantages and disadvantages of
being an entrepreneur, exposing them to real-world experiences, such as
entrepreneurship centres, venture incubators, and other business venues. Student-led, such education gives them an
opportunity to determine the entrepreneurial priorities of a college or
university; for example, they can develop their own innovative ideas and engage
in collaborative work by participating in a productive venture accelerator.
Fosters a comprehensive,
socially responsible, and global education
Comprehensive,
entrepreneurship education allows students to experience the entire entrepreneurship
process, including idea generation and business planning, development and
implementation, and launching and implementation. Besides lecturers, students can receive
mentoring from alumni with entrepreneurial experience. Socially responsible, entrepreneurship
education encourages students to pay attention to social issues while creating
ventures; they are required to consider the triple bottom line of
entrepreneurship initiatives, including economic viability, social
responsibility, and environmental safety. Further, entrepreneurship education
motivates students to practise reverse innovation by developing inexpensive
products or services for new markets overseas. Since Malaysia’s socioeconomic
progress will depend on making inroads into global markets, it is crucial that tis
college and university students learn entrepreneurship with an international
perspective.
Enhances creativity, generic
attributes, and lifelong learning
Equipped
with entrepreneurial knowledge and skills, college and university graduates
will be more capable of capitalizing on their creativity, demonstrating higher
self-esteem, and projecting an internal locus of control over their
professional and personal lives. They will have the generic attributes or soft
skills not only to start a small business, but also to grow it into a big
business. Additionally, entrepreneurship
education for college and university students in Malaysia helps foster a robust
business culture that maximizes individual and collective socioeconomic success
at both national and international levels.
Besides
creativity and generic skills, entrepreneurship education allows students to
engage in lifelong learning, benefitting them at different levels and in
different contexts. Students often actively
participate in entrepreneurship building activities in a progressive manner,
allowing them to develop the insight necessary for discovering and creating
entrepreneurial opportunities, and to gain the expertise essential for starting
and managing their own business.
Developmental process for all
academic levels
Entrepreneurship
education highlights to students that entrepreneurship is a developmental
process with distinct stages that nurtures their entrepreneurial spirit through
all academic levels; for example, entrepreneurship is infused in a mass
communication course at Jesselton College Sabah, providing the context for
learning other fundamental skills, while enhancing students’ learning
motivation. At Jesselton College Sabah,
mass communication students are required to produce a business plan by applying
the entrepreneurial framework, which includes the five phases of idea
generation, opportunity evaluation, planning, company launch, and growth.
Relevant to all
socioeconomic backgrounds
Students
of different socioeconomic backgrounds will benefit from entrepreneurial
education because it encourages them to become creative problem solvers by
nurturing their unconventional talents and skills. It allows them to address such socioeconomic
issues as social justice, job discrimination, and unemployment. Further, entrepreneurship serves as an agent
of social justice by encouraging the disenfranchised (dropouts, ex-convicts,
and other disadvantaged) to capitalize on their unrealized talents in order to
start a small business. Many of the
previously disadvantaged have become cobblers, hawkers, carpenters, and
construction workers.
In
the USA, prison entrepreneurship programs pair prisoners with top-level mentors
to help them gain business savvy. Such
programs help reduce recidivism because many ex-prisoners will be able to get a
job instead of returning to crime.
Further,
entrepreneurship education promotes economic self-sufficiency among people with
special needs. For example,
entrepreneurship in the form of self-employment provides individuals who are
physically or mentally challenged with the potential to create and manage small
businesses in which they act as their own boss.
Furthermore,
entrepreneurship education has spurred immigrants and women to start their own
business, helping them to create better lives for themselves and their families,
while playing an impressive role in nation building. Today, immigrants and women in Malaysia
account for millions in revenues, conducting all kinds of businesses, from
selling food, herbs, batik to healthcare products. College and university students should
emulate these self-made businesspeople, many of whom are optimistic and
persistent risk-takers who know that they have nothing to lose.
Encourages risk-taking and
learning from mistakes
Entrepreneurship
education fosters the development of positive character traits among college
and university students. It exposes them
to challenging tasks that motivate them to take calculated risks and learn from
mistakes, which in turn promotes ingenuity, perseverance, and
innovativeness. Additionally,
entrepreneurship education embraces skills and talents that are not emphasized
in a conventional curriculum. It teaches
students to appl unconventional methods to solve problems, for instance, through
mind-mapping, parallel thinking, and other creative problem-solving
strategies. It respects students who do
not fit in or are not academically oriented by encouraging them to capitalize
on their emotional intelligence instead.
In other words, entrepreneurship education benefits average students who
are good at a variety of things, but do not excel in a particular subject. Nevertheless, many of these students tend to
possess divergent thinking that allows them to overcome the barriers faced by
new companies by connecting the dots in different ways.
Promotes social and
emotional wellbeing
Entrepreneurship
education allows students with special needs to channel their energy and
attention into something they prefer rather than being stuck in a conventional
classroom that they find boring and meaningless. Students with special needs tend to have
limited attention spans that prevent them from doing well in regular school
subjects. However, when provided with
entrepreneurship training, they are able to concentrate on business endeavours
that they find challenging and fulfilling.
In brief, entrepreneurship education enhances the social and emotional
wellbeing of students, allowing them to pursue and attain their preferred
vocational goals. Being able to pursue
their own entrepreneurial goals also gives them a greater sense of achievement
and control over their own destiny.
Promotes doing well by doing
good
Social
entrepreneurship turns students into business owners who care about the larger
community; for example, they can start an organic food business that allows
students from low income families to volunteer at the café for food credits. Additionally, students can form a consulting
company that helps various organizations create better relationships with
clients. Others can design websites,
video-chat programs, or social media plans for non-profit organizations or for
companies to connect with potential interns.
In brief, social entrepreneurship satisfies students’ desire to create a
socially responsible business and to undertake something that they are
passionate about, allowing them to thrive in their own career paths and formulate
their preferred lifestyle. It enables
them to serve the community with a more fulfilling purpose in mind, defining a
new generation that prefers to do their own thing and work for companies that
regard profit-making and social welfare as equally important.
Teaches students to fail
gracefully
Entrepreneurship
education teaches students not only to start a business but also how to fail
gracefully. They learn to plan
worst-case scenarios exit strategies and how to treat investors with care after
a business folds. Students may have a
lot of energy, passion, and ideas; nevertheless, they need to know the fact
that many ventures do fail. They learn
that business is not always about profit-making, but the entrepreneurial spirit
they develop and the lessons they learn while doing it. Those who fail early and fail cheap at their
first venture tend to be more capable of achieving greater success in the
future.
Provides access to talented
mentors
Many
colleges and universities have integrated successful entrepreneurs into their faculty
as they latter can share real-world experiences with students and provide
valuable insight into the exciting world of entrepreneurship. Further, socially responsible entrepreneurs
are eager to interact with college and university students, sharing their
entrepreneurial experiences and business tips.
Further, they can train students to do incorporation paperwork, develop
marketing plans, or work with angel investors. They can also teach students
concerning case studies, team projects, and market analyses that help them
develop the competencies for business success. Finally, integrating entrepreneurs into
non-business majors (tourism, human resource development, education, law) helps
produce well-rounded graduates who can cope more effectively in the global
world; every graduate, regardless of his or her major, requires basic
entrepreneurial knowledge to succeed in his or her field.
Promotes holistic development
Entrepreneurship
education emphasizes personal development, business development, and
entrepreneurial skills development of students.
Personal development involves building confidence, motivating progress,
strengthening the entrepreneurial mind-set, fostering a desire to achieve, and
inspiring action. Business development
involves teaching technical and financial literacy and self-employment skills
that can result in personal improvement.
Entrepreneurial skills development provides training in social skills,
networking, creative problem solving, opportunity seeking, leadership, and
community cooperation; it also includes dealing with bureaucracy and local
cultural norms. Hence, entrepreneurship
education provides a blended learning experience that allows students to
acquire business knowledge and skills with the best tools and approaches. Students also have the opportunities to
engage more directly with the community, through schools, community centres, church,
and other organizations.
Enhances social inclusion
Entrepreneurship
education promotes social inclusion by highlighting the role of
entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial finance, fair play, civic administration, and
banking. It encourages students to
understand and feel the emotional content of entrepreneurship, to seek role
models, and to create higher levels of aspiration. Further, it trains students
to argue “about” entrepreneurship and “for” entrepreneurship, to practise
enterprise in different social and cultural settings, and to access social
capital that can provide practical help. It also requires students to research on
what is cutting edge, current, and dynamic in business, besides providing
access to resources, markets, and internship opportunities.
Raises awareness on the triple
bottom line
Entrepreneurship education teaches students the
importance of maintaining the triple bottom line in business. Students learn that effective entrepreneurs
will be preparing three different bottom lines. First, they learn the traditional measure of
corporate profit or the bottom line of the profit and loss account. Second,
they learn the bottom line of a company's people account or an indication of
how socially responsible the company has been throughout its operations. Third,
they learn the bottom line of the company's planet account or a measure of how
environmentally responsible it has been.
Overall, entrepreneurship education makes students become more aware of
the significance of the triple bottom line in business, including profit,
society, and planet. They learn that
successful entrepreneurs not only assess the financial, but also the social and
environmental performance of the company.
About the writers:
Yuk
Fong Chin is the CEO of Jesselton College Sabah. Fung Lan Yong teaches Academic
English, Journalism, and Entrepreneurship at the same college. She also serves
as Honorary President of its Psychological Society.
