| Education vital for entrepreneurs |
| 17 October 2011 |
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Sir Tim Cohen's Monday Comment raises an interesting point (SA needs a few business heroes like Steve Jobs, October 10). Business could certainly use the positive public relations of a new hero such as Mr Jobs. Since his untimely death, one hears that Mr Jobs was not the perfect leader, but the accolades that he created value, employment and completely new markets continue to flow in. Indeed, SA could benefit from such an accomplishment. SA remains a frontier society. It is full of awkward constraints, regulatory hurdles and great confusion over economic policy. Yet, in spite of that, SA has produced extraordinary entrepreneurs over the decades. Let's simply call them people with enormous business acumen. Think of Donald Gordon, Raymond Ackerman, Patrice Motsepe and Herman Mashaba. Not to mention companies such as MT'N, which has created an internationally renowned business in 17 years, with a market capitalisation of about R254bn and a subscriber base of 140-million.
It is a testament to SA that no other country our size, as far as I am aware, has produced as many internationally competitive companies. There is something in our business DNA where the spark of imagination is often lit. I have little doubt that a new generation of entrepreneurs will follow. We may not have the start-up hotbed that is Silicon Valley, but you don't have to look much further than Sandton, Stellenbosch and Umhlanga to see where SA's next Steve Jobs might come from. A key concern is that unless we fix the public education system, entrepreneurs will continue to come from too narrow an elite to broaden economic prosperity, which must after all be our first responsibility. Until the formal curriculum of schools incorporates this into their agenda and parents encourage entrepreneurial thinking and behaviour from a young impressionable age, the average child will only have the thought of a corporate job, especially those who were previously disadvantaged who aspired to have a "big" job in a big company one day.
Nick Binedell Director: Gordon Institute of Business Science |
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| Publication: Business Day |
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| Category: About GIBS, Education and Skills, Entrepreneurship |
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