Start in school to create entrepreneurs, says EY

TEACHING South Africans about entrepreneurship from an early age would go help to alleviate the unemployment crisis, says global tax and advisory services firm EY.

In Britain, primary school pupils are given £5 to start their own small businesses. Emulating this approach in SA could help reduce unemployment that is compounded by a weak education system and a high low-skills base, EY said.

The company’s SA government and public sector leader, Koko Khumalo, said the country needed a mindset shift and a culture change to get its youth aiming to become employers and not employees.

EY’s views are in line with several organisations, including the World Bank, that have called on SA to improve education and the development of its skills base to make its population more attractive to employers.

This month, EY released a report on the Group of 20 (G-20) in which it made recommendations on how member countries could improve entrepreneurship. SA is a member of the group. Creating a G-20 multilateral entrepreneurs’ start-up visa, which would allow businesspeople unfettered travel among member states, as well as encouraging international networking, were among the proposals EY made to stim- ulate business activity.

In the medium-term, governments could introduce entrepreneurship instruction from primary school through to tertiary level.

Ms Khumalo said by establishing the Department of Small Business Development, SA had taken a positive step towards developing entrepreneurs.

The private sector could buy goods from entrepreneurs to aid the cause, she said. Entities such as the National Youth Development Agency also aimed to support aspiring businesspeople.

Agency chairman Yershen Pillay said its business development training supported almost 63,000 aspiring and established entrepreneurs in the 2014-15 financial year, while 1,000 youth-owned enterprises received R29m through its business grant funding.

A total of 75-million people in G-20 states are unemployed.

World Bank data showed that nine out of 10 jobs globally were created in the private sector and thus making it crucial for states to have a conducive operating environment, said EY emerging markets and global deputy leader Rohan Malik.

“How is the government helping to create the right conditions for success with respect to fiscal and nonfiscal incentives, the right policies in terms of ease of doing business and the cost of doing business?”