This post was written by Nino Makatsaria. She’s a student at Caucasus University in Georgia
I came across the article in NY post “A Classroom Path to Entrepreneurship”, that talked about the correct **way of entrepreneurship teaching methods in colleges and universities. The article summarized the success story of Kansas based Professor Buzza who in his course of entrepreneurship gave his class the real world assignment and tied in classroom learning along with extracurricular activities on entrepreneurship. The, basic idea of the article was that, the entrepreneurship in colleges should not be taught purely in a traditional classroom with lectures and theoretical approaches, instead it should be a mix of the traditional classroom lectures, with business relevance and real world case studies on entrepreneurship. The article was very interesting and to tell the truth I agree with the idea of the article completely, and I think not only entrepreneurship, but most of the business courses, should contain some real world experiences or at least case study analysis methods, to make it more interesting for students…
But, this is not the point of this blog here, in the article, I noticed very interesting sentence, a fact actually, which I am sure, if read by US citizens or some other citizens of developed countries or even you my SABF blog readers, might have gone unnoticed, but from me, the person who comes from Georgia and who has undergone the post socialist high school and the university teaching courses/methods, this was a very interesting fact for me, that later that day, evolved as a food for thought on things that needs to be modified at least in post soviet countries education system:
“According to the Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, Mo., more than 2,000 colleges and universities now offer at least a class and often an entire course of study in entrepreneurship.”
Comment: In my country, there does not exist even a book on entrepreneurship on university’s library book shelves, not to mention classes of whole semester courses!
Dear readers, think through the above noted sentences for several minutes??Have you thought through???
If yes, there is another food for thought: The US, according to reports, shows the highest levels of early-stage entrepreneurship activity (that are the entrepreneurs involved in setting up the business/ and or owner manager of new business) in the high income countries, sharing the third place, after the Iceland and Hong Kong, whereas Russia ( and I guess if research was conducted in Georgia we would have had same results as we all share post soviet countries system left overs), is the third from the last. The US, where market is quite saturated compared to HongKong and Iceland, and thus the achievable market growth is substantially lower as well, still holds the third place in early-stage of entrepreneurial activities than those of developing countries, where, if looked in terms of the economy, there should be more early stage entrepreneurial activities due to the market opportunities and ease of entrance on those markets. It should be noted also, that I researched the class offerings of Hong Kong and Iceland universities, and they also do offer, substantial classes, courses in entrepreneurship and small business management.
So, I think now, everyone gets my point now?..
– If not here it is: Encouraging entrepreneurship through educational systems can yield a positive return to your country in terms growth in number of early entrepreneurial activities, which in turn will contribute to country’s economic growth through new business creation, creation of new jobs, intensification of the competition and enhancement of the productivity of the country!