Rethinking Entrepreneurship and University Education (original) (raw)

There is an ongoing debate around the world on the role of universities in producing employable graduates. Some argue that there is a need to focus on skills that the industry needs, with an emphasis on STEM and professional courses that offer hands-on skills easily transferable into the market. There is also a push towards placing more emphasis on two-year technical college programs. Others have asked that institutions focus on training students in entrepreneurial skills that they can use to employ themselves upon graduation instead of seeking employment from the government or industry. While all these arguments are valid, they reflect an emphasis on a single variable embedded within a diverse set of options. What if, for instance, instead of seeing university education as skill training for a specific job, we see it as an engagement that involves skills that not only produce employable graduates but also entrepreneurs and well-rounded citizens who adapt to the ever-changing world of work? Further, what if we started looking at what we consider to be employable skills from a broader perspective? Education is about knowledge and skills, about graduates with the knowledge to theorize about human life and phenomena, graduates with skills to provide practical solutions for current and future challenges. Without thinkers and theorizers, we cannot imagine a world outside of the immediate. If we train students on skills of repairing a tractor that is based on today's thinking, for instance, how do we prepare them for the tractor of the future that might be self-driving and using solar power instead of diesel or petrol? Here are a few thoughts on entrepreneurship as part of education that is beyond skill training. Entrepreneurship has become a staple in many conversations, strategies, and even practices in many boardrooms, political meetings, and businesses. When people talk about business success, they talk about people who are entrepreneurs; they talk about Uber, Netflix, Airbnb, etc., as entrepreneurial companies that changed the way business is done in their