Cultivating youth entrepreneurship

Tunohole Mungoba



This past Friday, Acacia Secondary School held its final Entrepreneurship Day, due to curriculum reform.

Entrepreneurship and accounting teacher, Johanna Loit, told The Zone entrepreneurship is not only important as a means of living, but also as a subject.

“Entrepreneurship is important for job creation. We as teachers inform our learners that not all of them will be employed so they need to make sure they create jobs, not only for themselves, but for others as well,” she said.

“It can also be seen as social recognition by giving back to the community and meeting the government halfway by generating products that are not availed by the government. Being an entrepreneur also brings independence into one's life.”

Loit explained to The Zone that having an Entrepreneurship Day is important, because the learners finally get to put into practise what they have been taught all year.

“They first have to come up with a business report, which is for marks. They do a bit of market research by checking what exactly their consumers want. Secondly, they have to advertise their business beforehand by creating posters and different banners to attract customers to their stand,” she explained.

The Entrepreneurship Day consisted of learners selling different products such as cupcakes, hotdogs, braaivleis and different services like hosting a disco and concert for the learners.

According to Loit, children are not likely to take up entrepreneurship as a means of living, if they are uninspired.

“When children reach grade 11, they do not want to take up commercial fields, because it seems much underrated. They would much rather follow their friends and choose other fields like science.

“Children are not motivated to become entrepreneurs, because they do not see any successful ones. That is why most children turn to working an eight-to-five job,” she said.

Due to this, Loit invited two entrepreneurs to speak to the children, who made sure they were inspired.

One of them is the owner of Esh-Ham Business Consultants and Esh-Ham Beauty Plaza, Esther Hamukoto, who spoke to the learners and touched on different topics such as the importance of branding and marketing for start-up businesses, identifying a clear vision, goals and objectives for your business and basic entrepreneurship skills for start-ups.

“As an entrepreneur, it is important that you have a clear vision of where you and your business want to be in the next few years. This will help you work towards the goals you have set for yourself,” said Hamukoto.

“My main aim was to help and prepare entrepreneurship learners to prepare themselves to become employers rather than jobseekers after completing their studies. This was through motivating them on how to start businesses that have a niche in the market and how to be consistent when operating their businesses,” she told The Zone.

“We also need to make sure that learners know about identifying the cost of production and how to effectively price and position your products in the market. Engagement in business and how to network effectively and get mentors to assist with transitioning in business, are all important.”

Hamukoto advised the learners and aspiring entrepreneurs that confidence in business is vital to make sure they succeed.

Although inspiration was provided to the learners, some still felt that entrepreneurship is not the right path for them.

Loide Hangula, one of the learners who had a stall, said she feels that she prefers working for someone else. “

Business is not easy and you can fail very easily if you are not careful. It is risky and I don't want to end up failing,” she said.

“It is better to work for someone else so that you can know what to do and not be worried about where your next income will come from.”