Letters

LETTERS: Universities should promote entrepreneurship in Kenya

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Graduands at a past Graduation ceremony. FILE PHOTO | NMG

Encouraging entrepreneurs to start new businesses is a priority for any government. In Kenya, there are many universities from which graduates pass through every year. All students pursuing their education hope to get a good job in the flourishing economy.

As hubs of youth populations and providers of education, educational institutions are well suited to delivering both training and opportunities to students and encouraging young people to pursue entrepreneurship as a career.

In Kenya, the role of higher education institutions is undergoing a fundamental change to better encourage and support young entrepreneurs. Traditionally, students in higher education institutions were exposed to that were limited to their specific domain.

Unless domain knowledge is accompanied with knowledge and hands-on experience in the world of business, it is difficult for educational institutions to create large cohorts of entrepreneurs that will succeed in the long run.

Business schools are well suited to providing exposure to entrepreneurship given that business and related aspects are part of the curriculum.

Such educational institutions must showcase their ability to enhance the major scientific and technical competences required by their students to be competitive in the future.

Key factors in entrepreneurial success such as motivation and willingness to take risk are difficult to implant in students in a classroom environment. However, universities institutions can provide education in business and the processes relating to starting and running a business enterprise, as well as case studies of real-life entrepreneurs, both successful and unsuccessful.

Entrepreneurship education must provide both the theoretical aspects of entrepreneurship and the necessary business skills.

Students must understand that being an entrepreneur requires a different attitude than being an employee; an entrepreneur must be a visionary while also have the ability to design and implement appropriate strategies to keep the organization performing and growing.

Students who wish to become entrepreneurs must also understand the important role of innovation, not only for commercialization but also for improvements in business performance.

Such learning is indeed important, but it can be difficult to assess the long-term outcomes within the contexts and timeframes of entrepreneurship courses and programmes, the true test of which will be undertaken in the real world.

So, beyond the classroom, higher education institutions in Kenya should seek to play a critical role in developing an entrepreneurship ecosystem that can boost the number of sustainable startups in the country.

Educational institutions should also work with industry bodies to create internships and research-related placement for their students; such relationships and arrangements can be extended and utilised to mentor young entrepreneurs in relevant business skills.

One way to connect higher education institutions with an entrepreneurship ecosystem and provide real-world training to entrepreneurs is for an institution to run an incubator in the sense of a shared facility where a combination of training, mentoring, and infrastructural facilities are offered all under one roof.

Through incubators, higher education institutions in Kenya can provide student entrepreneurs with infrastructure and facilities essential to launching and running their startups. The government should start investing in venture capitalist funds to meet the equity requirements of startups to support the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Ndirangu Ngunjiri, financial analyst, Watermark Consultants, Nairobi

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