To succeed in any career, you need training.
An accountant would not be able to complete a tax return without being shown which boxes to fill; similarly, a manager would not be able to relate to their team without learning about working practices. Why then should becoming an entrepreneur be any different?
Although we may be born with a natural aptitude for a subject or discipline, any skill is able to be improved through a willingness to learn.
Therefore, it is important that we provide budding entrepreneurs with the knowledge to develop their own sets as required.
This is particularly true for the core business areas of finance, accountancy, and management, as well as for developing broader-ranging skills such as effective communication, adaptability, and confidence.
The advantage of teaching such skills over more traditional subjects is that they are not uniquely relevant to an entrepreneurial career path.
After all, you can be an entrepreneur in any field, so it stands to reason that the skills needed to start your own business would also be desirable for an employee.
Proof of such a range of business-relevant skills would make for an attractive candidate in most fields.
Therefore, as the skills taught in entrepreneur courses generally apply to all areas of industry, these courses do not pigeonhole creativity and opportunity to a specific career.
Similarly, skills associated with entrepreneurs, such as money management, financial literacy and interpersonal communications, are also relevant and beneficial for day-to-day life.
However, the benefits of entrepreneurial teaching spread further than being purely personal; it is also good for society.
Entrepreneurial innovation and new enterprise are essential for a country to be globally competitive, with new technologies creating new jobs.
Furthermore, even those who instead choose to pursue employed careers are more financially literate, so they are more likely to save and invest, making home ownership and a secure retirement more likely.
There is also evidence to suggest that teaching children subjects that are more applicable to real-life life, such as those most associated with entrepreneurs, makes them more interested in education and more willing to learn in the long run.
From an economic perspective, the benefit of entrepreneurs to society has never been in doubt. However, it is unfair and lazy even to believe that unlike every other career available, entrepreneurs are born and the relevant skills cannot be taught.
Therefore, if society is to enjoy the benefits entrepreneurs bring, it is only fair to equip them with the training to do so. On the reverse side, the personal benefits of an entrepreneurial education spread far further than purely the business world, leading to an arguably more prosperous livelihood.
What do you think? Should we as a country do more to help develop our entrepreneurs?
