Business boost for young minds

Groenberg go great guns at games

PROBLEM-solving skills are essential for a business to stay ahead of the competition.

This is one reason learning to “think outside of the box” is important for young people.

Enter the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants’ (Saica) annual Business Development Games, which are held around the country to teach pupils how business works and how they fit in.

Earlier this month, 160 Grade 10 and 11 pupils from 16 schools in and around the greater Cape Town area had the chance to test their business acumen while having fun via the entrepreneurship game Commercium. The game’s developer is accounting lecturer and chartered accountant Jaco Fouche. He designed the game to “simulate the dynamics and fast pace of the business world in a fun way so learners know that the business world is not as boring as often depicted at school”.

Gugu Makhanya, senior executive for transformation and growth at Saica explained: “We introduce learners to reallife business situations and show them some of the daily decisions business leaders make to run their companies successfully. In so doing, they learn how to navigate the world of work that awaits them... We also use the game to introduce learners to chartered accountancy as a career through motivational talks, career presentations as well as liaising with Saica’s Thuthuka Bursary Fund students who act as facilitators while the learners play the games.”

After many nail biting moments and a day packed with fun, the winners were:

Groenberg High School – R5 000

St Andrews Technical High school – R4 000

Kensington High School – R3 200

Hottentots-Holland High School – R1 800

The cash prizes were sponsored by South Africa’s big four auditing firms: PwC, Deloitte, KPMG and EY.