Students have to learn to be job-creators, not job-seekers

Are universities and other tertiary institutions in Africa the weakest link in the unemployment crisis facing the youth on the continent?

This was the question Anastacia Mamabolo, an associate professor in entrepreneurship at the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science, was trying to answer during a virtual meeting organised by the Alliance for African Partnership (AAP), as part of its public dialogue series.

The meeting, held on 9 June by the AAP in collaboration with the Global Youth Advancement Network, explored the theme ‘Pathways to Resilience: African youth and Africa’s transformation’, an attempt to chart a road map on how employment opportunities for the youth could be increased.

The AAP is a consortium including Michigan State University in the United States and 10 African institutions.

In her presentation, ‘Strengthening Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in Africa: The role of African higher education institutions’, Mamabolo urged African universities to create awareness among students on becoming job-creators instead of job-seekers.

She argued that Africa’s university education systems are still deeply rooted in old ways of producing graduates for the public service, with a smaller number to join the private sector.

“But the expansion of education at all levels to cater for the significant increase of the African youth population of persons aged 15-35 has triggered an employment crisis,” said Mamabolo.

Entrepreneurial ecosystems

Unfortunately, the situation is likely to worsen as, according to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, countries in Sub-Saharan Africa will account for most of the growth of the world’s population over the coming decades.

“Of the additional two billion people who may be added to the global population between now and 2050, more than half could be from Sub-Saharan Africa,” stated the UN briefing report, World Population Prospects 2019.

In this regard, Mamabolo stressed the need for African universities to encourage students to start looking ahead to a future when jobs in the government or in big firms will be scarce.

To deal with the crisis, Mamabolo said universities should take on a new mission of establishing entrepreneurial ecosystems, a process that would equip students with skills to plan and launch start-ups and other business ventures before they leave the universities.

She argued that African universities are strategically placed to develop entrepreneurial ecosystems in their campuses as they have the capacity, ability and knowledge to respond to the unemployment crisis by transforming their curricula to meet the needs of their graduates.

Drawing insights from the book Building Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in Sub-Saharan Africa: A quintuple helix model, Mamabolo pointed out that, whereas Africa has resources and many young people that can contribute to the continent’s economic growth, in short supply are the necessary skills, funding, better attitudes towards self-employment and a conducive environment.

She noted that universities could intervene by providing the skills and knowledge required for enterprise growth through innovative education programmes for young entrepreneurs.

Specifically, she pointed out how universities could introduce entrepreneurship academic units in most of their degree programmes as well as full-fledged degrees in entrepreneurship, with enterprise development labs, technology and innovation parks and business incubation centres.

Although some universities across the continent have started such programmes, Mamabolo said they are limited. She cited the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, a centre of excellence in social innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as the C4DLab, a research and development incubation hub at the University of Nairobi in Kenya.

According to Mamabolo, the American University in Cairo has also started the AUC Venture Lab, an innovation enterprise that provides support to start-ups of young investors in Egypt.

The University of Nigeria at Nsukka has also started Roar Nigeria Tech Hub that provides professional support to technology enabled start-ups, researchers, entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized enterprises.

“But such success stories are few and far between and there is [an] urgent need for each university in Africa to have its own robust entrepreneurship programme,” said Mamabolo.

Bust myths about entrepreneurship

In addition to developing a mindset of innovativeness and risk-taking creativity, universities would have to bust myths about entrepreneurship that are held in most countries in Africa.

Mamabolo told the meeting that many young people are often made to believe that entrepreneurs are born and not made, or that college dropouts make better entrepreneurs.

Such beliefs, Mamabolo stated, have worked against many university graduates in Africa who could have managed to establish their own start-ups instead of looking for jobs.

“For instance, some youth in Kenya, especially those in the universities, think agriculture is not cool,” said Mamabolo, who is the co-leading expert in the Alliance for African Partnership entrepreneurship ecosystem scoping study in East, West and Southern Africa.

She also cited stereotyped cases whereby women are convinced they cannot succeed in the world of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, something that is not supported by fact.

But, for an entrepreneurial ecosystem to succeed, Mamabolo stressed that universities in Africa would have to go beyond the ordinary teaching and awarding of degrees and certificates. For entrepreneurship to flourish, graduates should be able to turn their ideas into physical products and services.

Mamabolo highlighted the need for educational programmes at universities to incorporate experiential learning, design and industrial internships. To achieve the objective, Mamabolo advised universities to find qualified lecturers and trainers who are motivated to work with students on projects that are likely to be transformed into start-ups.

A wake-up call to universities?

But, in circumstances whereby such qualified people would not be readily available, she called on universities to train some of their faculty members to teach entrepreneurship and to mentor students, amid sustained efforts to close gaps between academia and entrepreneurship practice.

Yet, achieving an entrepreneurial ecosystem in Africa in the near future is hard to gauge as most universities are underfunded, overcrowded and highly qualified lecturers and professors are few.

On the funding of student projects and start-ups, Mamabolo recommended the establishment of university crowdfunding platforms, as well as encouraging successful alumni to support student initiatives.

“With assistance from some of the alumni, talented graduates could be placed in entrepreneurial firms, small and medium-sized enterprises for experiential learning opportunities,” said Mamabolo.

Mamabolo’s presentation, in the light of the current youth unemployment crisis even among most university graduates, could serve as a wake-up call for African universities to start assessing their academic missions in terms of job creation on the continent.

But if an entrepreneurial ecosystem in universities is an answer to youth unemployment, the onus is on African governments to ensure that those universities and other tertiary institutions are properly funded to be able to undertake that responsibility.