School Curriculum should include Entrepreneurship.
The school curriculum, a bedrock to our future society, the platform for personal development and growth, is yet stuck in the past, halting personal development at its foundations and producing societies that lack ambition, innovation, and dedication. Why has our educational system become a stagnated machine of underdevelopment, anchoring our potential of a creative, innovative society?
Entrepreneurship education aids students from all socioeconomic backgrounds to think outside the box and nurture unconventional talents and skills. It creates opportunities, ensures social justice, instills confidence, and stimulates the economy. Moreover, it supports creativity, innovation, and collaboration. These skills are highly valued by the top colleges and most businesses in the world.
I am a bi-product of rarity to which I refer to my ambitious mindset. Though successful is questionable, I have long had an interest in business and developing my own business. But my ability for personal development helping the foundation on this mindset was never attributed to our curriculum within school.
I, like millions of others, went to a state school, was eligible for free school meals, and came from a very working-class background. My father worked at factories and my mam (mother) was a stay at home mam. Entrepreneurism was not something I was immediately exposed to nor was it as a child something I ever thought about.
Now, one can state I had the typical pathway as so many business owners. For example, I used to purchase sweets from the local shop and resell to my peers. As a bi-product, my parents would question why I had double, sometimes triple, the money I left home with. I found a sort of buzz on turning £1 into £3 — sadly I was caught selling these sweets to other children and given detention, something I still feel resentful about. The lack of encouraging personal growth in entrepreneurship and the punishing of such thought process is a clear indication of the need for change in our education system.
Business Studies was an option for study in the latter years of secondary school (years 9, 10 & 11 or for American readers 8th, 9th & 10th grade). I thoroughly enjoyed the subject, however, it lacked in business ownership and more focused on business administration skills.
So the question begs, should we introduce a subject in the selection of the years/grades above for entrepreneurship? I believe unequivocally that it should be taught and encouraged. Not everyone will have the mindset or want to study the subject and that is fine. This is why it is provided as a choice-based learning option much like business studies, religious studies, Geography, and Woodworking was during my time at school.
We are now in a society that is easily reached via social media. Younger people are seeing what money provides via videos and sometimes it can harness the interest and light within a person to seek personal development. This interest should be embodied by a school subject that can set the foundations for further growth, a subject that teaches business structures, product sourcing, branding, marketing, and so forth in what one can class as a basic foundation.
The benefits of providing knowledge and skills will have a positive impact on the local economy and national economy with more small businesses, an increase in employment opportunities, British innovation, and development. We can harness a society of people who have ambition and dedication to grow themselves, their businesses, and ultimately as a bi-product grow the economy. We can have a society that has the knowledge to make business possible, not a society that feels the only route is low paid employment due to poor grades. I left school with limited GCSE’s (grades) and went to college and frankly wasted three years — I have since done well but not because I worked for someone else but because I put to work my determination and ambition — so many more people can do this with little education via our education system.
I hope that in years to come our educational system will reflect the society of today and not the society of a century ago. The change is possible, the change is needed, and the change can develop the UK’s economy, innovation, and business growth. The children today are the innovators and employers of tomorrow so let’s encourage them early and give them the head start they require.
What’s your thoughts?
