Recently, I had the privilege of addressing the Barbados Small Business Association’s Enterprise In Action symposium at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre.
Senior students from a number of secondary schools presented business ideas that they themselves conceptualized from idea to possible enterprise. The business concepts ranged from funeral services, to pastry making, to leather craft, jewellery among others.
I was impressed by the students’ familiarity with business concepts in relation to marketing, market research, pricing and finance. The tremendous benefits of teamwork were very evident and I could not help but note the many implications for cooperative learning opportunities and project work in our schools.
I used the opportunity as well to challenge the corporate sector in Barbados. Our businesses are the chief beneficiaries of our educational system.
I wish to acknowledge that many of our successful enterprises already exhibit a very strong social conscience in giving back to the community and society from which they draw.
As happens in North America, our Government should provide incentives to businesses that twin themselves with both primary and secondary schools for the purpose of not just providing financial resources but, importantly, being an entrepreneurial reference point that exposes students from very early to the fundamentals of business and provides opportunities for job attachments, for the sharing of equipment and facilities such as the Caribbean Vocational Qualifications (CVQs) soon will provide for.
Every hotel on the South Coast and West Coast should see the schools in close proximity to their establishment as a possible employment pool in which they invest and, by so doing, ensure that schools can produce individuals who not only possess academic skills, but more importantly the basic skills of entrepreneurship.
By so doing, they will of necessity render more of the products of our schools employable when they graduate. As the traditional avenues in the civil service become constricted, as modern technology makes certain jobs obsolete, as more and more individuals opt to work from home, as companies restructure, downsize and merge, as globalization imposes pressures on small economies like ours, our approach to education must strike an important balance between theory and practice. Businesses must facilitate that important partnership that allows our students to get the feel of the work environment from very early.
The Barbados Small Business Association must be lauded for its contribution through its entrepreneurship initiatives carried out in collaboration with our educational institutions.
I encourage more and more schools to come on board.
I encourage more and more business to invest in our youth in this way. Let us not stop at criticizing the youth but let us give them ample opportunities to explore their entrepreneurial skills to the extent that they exist or can be fostered.
I have a vision of the workshops, the bakeries, the labs, the kitchens, the offices, the factory floors, the boardrooms and other facilities in the private and public sector becoming extensions of our secondary schools, in particular. In addition to the exposure to the theory that is currently emphasized in the classroom, meaningful exposure to the hands-on practical experiences is critical if students are to develop a feel for entrepreneurship.
I know that education is not synonymous with training, but millions on training can be saved through this early exposure to the real world of work. The chasm that exists between ideas and practice can be bridged if schools shift from an overemphasis on theory.
School can never become the real world of work, but both can benefit from an important overlap as we seek to bridge the gaping gap between what each does. In this regard, the private enterprise and the business sector in general might hold the key to a new wave of success in the schools of the future. It is certainly not the intention to turn every student into an entrepreneur, but we want to get more and more students thinking like entrepreneurs.
According to Jerry Kaplan, if the entrepreneurs of the future are to be successful, they must possess the ability to lead, to communicate, to make decisions, to be good team players and the ability to focus in on the details and then move back to the bigger picture.
Another expert Marty Zwillings (Startupprofessionals.com) contends that entrepreneurs are well positioned to become the new leaders of the future because they perceive problems as opportunities and have the mental set to innovate.
It is in this regard that business enterprises must partner with the educational sector to foster these non-academic but important skills and attitudes that undergird the success of tomorrow’s entrepreneurs.
To create entrepreneurs of the future is to invest in our schools today!
• Matthew D. Farley is a secondary school principal, chairman of the National Forum On Education, and a social commentator. Email [email protected]
