Entrepreneurship is the answer!

My heart beats faster than normal every time I hear somebody says “Education is the key, it is our answer to our problems.”

If by education we are referring to the organized systematic methods of giving instructions as is the curriculum in our schools today, then education is definitely not the answer to our problems as a country. It hurts sometimes when I think that I might have to put my kids through this system, but then I find peace in knowing that I always have a choice.

How can education be the answer if we have doctors, engineers, accountants and scientists sitting at home with degrees seeking employment? We keep pushing and pushing that our children must go to school and yet schools have produced but there are not enough opportunities for those who’ve been through the schooling system. Education as is does not teach liberation but teaches slavery. Education teaches you how to WORK and depend on somebody else for your well-being. It doesn’t liberate or teach you independence.

Hence we see all the protests happening in our townships. They barely have anything to do with service delivery. They mostly are birthed by the frustration within our youth. They were told that if you go to school, then you will find a job and life will be good. They’ve been to school, but there are no jobs. Day in day out they push CVs but still no employment. And when they cannot take it anymore, they take to the streets. Interestingly schools are normally the first to be destroyed, for they realize that such was never the answer to their problems. They are bored and hungry so they keep themselves busy with crime, using their intelligence and it just keeps getting worse and worse. On the other hand our officials are still blinded by what they were also taught; “Education is the answer.” Either we change our education or we stop this education.

Entrepreneurship is the answer. My definition of an entrepreneur is someone who identifies a problem and provides a solution at a cost. As an entrepreneur, you get paid for providing solutions. We have many of those; problems that is. But we also have many who have solutions. Those are the entrepreneurs. There’s only a few who are able to find ways to provide solutions and get paid for it. Whiles others have solutions but will not attempt to implement them for they are focused on completing their schooling first so that they will have “something to fall back on.”

I acknowledge that somehow, it has been identified that we need to cultivate the culture of entrepreneurship. But the issue with this is that we wait until it’s too late. Why don’t we change the focus? Change the effort all together. The investments made in our education be the investments made in cultivating entrepreneurship. Why don’t we teach our kids entrepreneurship at school level already so that before they even finish metric, they may be well on their way as successful entrepreneurs? Most of the successful entrepreneurs I know started their businesses when they were teenagers. Even better, most of the world’s wealthiest dropped out of school. And by teaching entrepreneurship I do not meant the “Entrepreneurship’ module taught at some higher institutions. But I am referring to real methods that will help entrepreneurs get started immediately. Expose them to programs available to support their start-ups.

Until we realize that education is definitely not the answer, our problems will NEVER be solved.