Why kenyan schools need to groom their students to develop an entrepreneurial mindset

Research conducted in 2019 shows that about 50,000 students graduate from universities in Kenya annually. The same data indicates that an average of 800,000 youths join the job market each year. This means that thousands of young individuals flock the job market waiting to be absorbed in their different industries. Unfortunately for these eager youths, the rate of unemployment in Kenya is, well, nerve wracking. 

An analysis document compiled by Statista in the first quarter of 2021 disclosed Kenya’s unemployment rate as 6.60 percent. This was a 1.2 percent surge from the previous quarter. 

Basically, this means that a plethora of students will spend nights dipping their legs in bone-chilling water in an effort to jam new information into their brains, only for them to finish school and join the unemployed population.

Scary thought right?

How do we change this narrative? How do we make sure that children under our care do not end up frustrated by the current unemployment crisis in the country?

Simple. Teach them how to become entrepreneurs at an early age.

Benefits of cultivating the entrepreneurial mindset in Kenyan students

Quite a number of people in the current job market have a degree. This means that jobs are extremely competitive and if you do not know someone who knows someone, you will probably end up sitting on that degree for an extremely long time. An entrepreneurial mindset taught at an early age helps students escape this grim reality. With such a mindset, they can;

Prepare for the unexpected

The COVID-19 pandemic left a lot of people unemployed. When the lockdown to curtail the pandemic was imposed in 2020, 1.72 million individuals lost their jobs. While some were able to apply the phoenix phenomenon and rise from the ashes, most wound up entering the poverty bracket.

The cost of living has reached an all-time high. In the month of May, Kenya was experiencing an inflation rate of 7.1 percent. The automation of some services has robbed individuals of their sources of income. In fact, a survey conducted by the World Economic Forum’s Future of Job Survey revealed that by 2055, present-day job activities will become automated.

Change is inevitable and our children need to know how to navigate these changes.

Nurturing an entrepreneurial mindset within these children will help them develop creative ways of establishing themselves in life.  Think of it as giving students a torch that never goes off as they maneuver a dark environment; with time, they will build their own lighthouse.

Learn how to become a practical innovator

“Thinking outside the box” has become an empty mantra on account of its impractical nature. We like to say it, we like to encourage people to do it, but do we teach them how to actually think outside the box in a manner that is feasible?  

Here is what I mean.

When passing an old, abandoned house, a parent stops her three children and asks them how that house can breed income. The parent also says that they should think outside the box.

·       The first kid says that the abandoned house can be turned into a “house of horrors” where children can come and have fun during Halloween.

·       The second one says it can be a government safe house.

·       The third one says the house can be flipped and sold/rented at the current real estate market price.

All these ideas are creative. In fact, the first two show a lot of imagination but what are the chances that the government will pick that specific house to be a safe house? Halloween is a fun event and there are Kenyans who celebrate it but what are the odds of neighbors wanting to live next to a “house of horrors” and have strangers roaming their streets once a year? How lucrative is it to capitalize on this holiday? The last one, although unattractive, will either provide a steady amount of income or a huge amount of income.

Developing an entrepreneurial mindset in a child involves nurturing their innovative skills in such a way that children are able to come up with a mind-blowing relevant idea, weigh its pros and cons, do market research on the idea to assess its feasibility and be able to launch it into the market as a business.

At the end of the day, this entrepreneurial mindset is meant to help this child make an impact , solve a problem in the industry or area they chose and definitely get a source of income. Whatever innovative idea they conceptualize has to address a gap in the market and be able to sustain itself and grow. 

Identify opportunities in the market

With an entrepreneurial mindset, students can easily spot a gap in the market , identify the problem,  analyse it and find an innovative solution to it. Teaching children how to think like an entrepreneur will give them the skills that they need to spot opportunities in the market that need to be addressed.

In Kenya, there are a lot of issues that need attention, but people who are entering the job market want to solve the clearly defined problems that are in existence. Due to this, there are communities that continue to suffer because their problems go unidentified and consequently, unsolved. 

How to activate and produce young entrepreneurs

Evidently, entrepreneurship is an important skill that children should develop from a tender age. Having this knowledge will ensure that they address local and global problems, creating jobs along the way and injecting money into the country’s economy. 

And that is where Kinetic comes in.

Kinetic is a learning platform that helps schools impart their students with entrepreneurial skills at an early age so as to develop innovative and thought leaders of the future. The aim of the Kinetic platform is to ensure that students are equipped with vital skills required to succeed in the 21st Century. Kinetic does this through virtual learning on the Kinetic platform; nurturing a student’s entrepreneurial mindset, helping students develop collaborative skills, assisting learners when it comes to garnering execution skills through practical application.

Read more about the product here for the opportunity to learn how we can activate the next entrepreneurs!