LETTERS: Teach entrepreneurship from Grade 1

When I recently saw the story of Hilary Kiplagat, a young man with an MBA from the University of Nairobi, who opted to start operating a boda-boda business because he couldn’t get a white collar job, I quickly reconciled my mind that the now much publicised Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) may just be the magic bullet that Kenya has been waiting for to create entrepreneurial skills.

The Master’s degree holder has refused to allow his lack of a white-collar job define his destiny and Hilary now ekes out a living in a sector that most of his classmates will avoid like the plague.

However, his story prominently brings out a problem. Kenya has been churning out university graduates to job opportunities that can’t meet the demand.

As per the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) survey in 2018, seven million Kenyans are unemployed with 1.4 million out of this figure desperately looking for jobs.

Further statistics show that when most graduates don’t get jobs, they resort to going back to acquire another degree or diploma. This is a wrong mentality since an extra academic qualification does not necessarily guarantee one a job. It is high time the Ministry of Education incorporated entrepreneurial skills into curriculum in primary schools to open the minds of learners to the ocean of opportunities awaiting them out there.

Indeed, it is in this light that the current national conversation on competency-based curriculum is timely and God sent.

Curriculum experts tell us that CBC seeks to make learners competent in seven key areas including communication and collaboration, critical thinking and problem-solving, creativity and imagination, citizenship, digital literacy, learning to learn and self-efficacy.

In the developed countries, learners are exposed to entrepreneurial ventures at a young age, be it setting up lemonade stands or going door-to-door selling cookies or even coming up with creative science or art.

Such projects force a learner to use critical thinking and problem-solving skills as well as creativity and imagination.

These may not necessarily be the projects to be taken in Kenya but the approach of instilling the entrepreneurship skill is. With an entrepreneurial mindset introduced early in a child’s education, it will make one think outside the predictable employment box. Waiting until a learner gets to university to develop this mindset may be too late.

Entrepreneurship education teaches children to think outside the box. We can no longer afford to close the stable door when the horse has bolted.

The burden of developing this mindset should not be left to teachers alone. Parents and the larger society also play a vital role here.

The Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development, for instance, emphasises what the parents’ role is in CBC. Parents being the first educator, trainer and source of authority that a child encounters, they should also find innovative ways to allow learners to engage with the world around them. These can easily be woven into daily family conversations, activities and tasks. From dinner time conversations, Sunday afternoon games and other family social activities, the entrepreneurial philosophies can easily be adapted and internalised.

Some other ways in which entrepreneurship lessons can be integrated in the CBC is by exposing learners to real businesses, developing creativity through imagination, challenging their thinking skills and improving their research skills early on.

I long for the day our school children will be instrumental, with the guidance of the teachers, in running the canteens, farms, tack shops and other income generating ventures in their schools with regular performance reports. This is how we will produce the next generation of entrepreneurs and inventors who will take Kenya and Africa to the next level.

This is why I call upon all stakeholders to support government’s efforts as it embarks on the long journey towards implementation of CBC in schools because it will create a positive long-term impact in learners.

CBC could just be the silver bullet to give us the innovative thinkers and investors who will in turn become employment creators to help us achieve the goals of Kenya’s Vision 2030.

Belinda Mulindi,Communications specialist.