Call to empower school learners through entrepreneurship skills

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JEREMY MAGGS: The rapid development of skills in the workplace remains a thorn in the side of the economy and unless this is done with greater speed, we’re going to have problems. The national wheel spinning, so to speak, is going to continue. Someone who has a strong view on this and possibly some solutions is Ntsaphokazi Madyibi, who is founder of the Entrepreneurs Development Forum, and joins me now on the programme. So let me ask you bluntly, are you despondent about the pace?

NTSAPHOKAZI MADYIBI: Ja, I am despondent about the rate and the red tape that exists. I think one of the things that we haven’t really done well is to define who is an entrepreneur because entrepreneurs and small businesses, they are used interchangeably. I think it’s important for us to make the distinction between entrepreneurs and actually small businesses because I do make mention in the article that we need to have that distinction.

I think this also emanates from the fact that we view entrepreneurship as a business, whereas I can be an entrepreneur coming up with a solution, but not necessarily be the individual who actually takes that solution to the market.

So I can be the problem solver who really sees what is a problem and actually generate a solution, but ask someone who has the capabilities and the skills required by the market to actually take that solution to the market. So I think we are very slow because we are seeing it only as this thing that you need to be selling something. We are not looking at it from the perspective of solving some of these critical problems that we have.

JEREMY MAGGS: So how do you think we can best break the logjam in as quick a time as possible?

NTSAPHOKAZI MADYIBI: I think we need to integrate it in the curriculum, but also, we need to develop programmes that will be taken to communities because entrepreneurship usually starts at community level. Immediately when you tell someone that you need to start a business, you get a mind block because you think, what business am I going to start?

Read: Raising entrepreneurial children in our brave new world

But when you present entrepreneurship as saying, go and see a problem in your community and come up with solutions to that, then you get to be much more receptive in understanding what are the problems that we have in our communities and how can we mobilise and come up with resources to actually solve some of those problems.

JEREMY MAGGS: So who does this? How do you start that mobilisation then? Is it an issue around teaching better at schools? Is it more community cohesion or is there a role for business itself to perhaps drop a level and help people find those opportunities?

NTSAPHOKAZI MADYIBI: Yes. So I think firstly it’s about knowledge, we can’t start businesses if we don’t have knowledge of what it is that is wrong. So I think it starts with the knowledge and that’s why I feel entrepreneurship embedded in education will really allow and empower people to be able to be these problem solvers. But also, on the other side, we as the people, as society, as the youth, we need to see ourselves as the solution because entrepreneurship is not something that falls out of the sky, it’s initiated by individuals.

That’s why it’s always important to actually start empowering the individual and ensure that they’ve got all the capabilities, all the knowledge, all the skills that are required in order for them to execute some of these solutions.

Then when we are looking at businesses, I think businesses play a huge role in empowering some of these entrepreneurs. Also, it then becomes a responsibility both from the people who are starting businesses and the existing businesses to say, how do we form partnerships that will then empower you to actually start and run these businesses in your communities without big businesses having to compete with these entrepreneurs?

So we need to find a way of how do we develop those public-private partnerships, also embedding civil society because I think when we look at South Africa and the African region at large, some of the challenges that we have are socioeconomic issues.

In order for us to solve those socioeconomic issues, the drivers of those changes have to be the people who are actually experiencing some of these issues that we have.

JEREMY MAGGS: And let me suggest to you that in theory that sounds great, but when it comes to the public-private partnership concept, businesses might turn round and say, ‘Look, we’re at full throttle here and we are busy focusing on our own survival. We simply don’t have time for outreach’.

NTSAPHOKAZI MADYIBI: Yes, well, that is true. I think in development we need to look at it in a holistic manner because the reality is that the people who are struggling in South Africa and who need to actually be the drivers of these entrepreneurial ventures are people who don’t have the capital. So it then becomes a responsibility from the businesses to see how do we ensure that we play a part in development.

Also, I think when we look at entrepreneurship, we look at skills and one of the ways that we need to look at this public-private partnership is to give big businesses the responsibility to say if we don’t have the skills in-house as a country, you need to look at how do you empower the people in-house rather than going out and (importing) some of the skills that we don’t have as a country.

So I think it’s something that needs to be legislated to say businesses need to be intentional in ensuring that they develop their human capital in South Africa to ensure that we actually reach where we are supposed to go.

JEREMY MAGGS: But business might turn round and say, what’s in it for me? Do they need to be better incentivised maybe from a tax perspective?

NTSAPHOKAZI MADYIBI: I think so. Those are some of the discussions, of course, that we need to look into. But I think honestly, we cannot develop if businesses are only doing their own thing while the people, who are consumers, because remember, when you are looking at all of these people who are starting these businesses, they are still consumers of big businesses.

So we need to find common ground to say, it’s not only about profit, but let’s look at how do we then empower these people so that we can all benefit from some of the offering that’s in South Africa.

JEREMY MAGGS: Thank you very much for joining me.