Developing Entrepreneurship Skills
Livelihoods in Africa
The labour market in Africa is largely informal, creating both risks and opportunities for young people. Because the labor market and entrepreneurship landscape remain largely unregulated, there is little protection or promotion for young people engaging in employment or business start-up. In light of this dynamic, young people have resorted to mixed livelihoods, sourcing their income from multiple sources such as agriculture, business projects and wage activities (MasterCard Foundation, 2017). To support young people in ensuring a sustainable livelihood and creating a social impact on their communities, they require a mixed skills palette.
In the previous session you learned about the 6Cs, the 21st century skills young people need to navigate the complex labor market. In this session you will learn about specific business and employability skills that can help young people succeed as leaders and entrepreneurs.
Other resources
Globally, prominent education organizations and networks are researching what the current and future livelihoods of young people in Africa look like, check out a few resources below:
Educate! Skills Map part II
We have revamped our skills map in line with recent studies on developing business and employability skills. Below is the new edition of the Educate! skills map of Business and Employability skills. In session B) you have already learned about part I of the Educate! skills map.
Business and employability skills
Sales and marketing
Creatively shape marketing, distribution, product design and impact to create profit and a positive and sustainable impact on people and planet.
Business modelling
Formulate assumptions about business processes and actively test these through prototyping, customer research, financial modelling and personal & team reflection.
Resource mobilization and Finance
Identify financial and other resource needs, creatively use available resources, mobilize additional resources and use these efficiently and transparently.
Project and self management
Set goals, evaluate possible strategies, plan and execute business processes and professionally work as an individual and as a team to meet goals.
Product making
Make products that are resourceful, marketable, environmentally friendly and solving community problems.
Opportunity identification
Analyze needs and resources to identify opportunities to start and strengthen (social) enterprises.
Designing for business and employability skills
Throughout the Design Academy you will learn how you can design sessions, modules and program models that will create deep learning and acquisition of the target skills. As you have already learned in session A) Educate! likes to do things a bit differently regarding entrepreneurship and leadership development. Based on the Educate! way we like to share the following design suggestions. You will notice that these suggestions are different from the 6Cs which can be integrated in any lesson or Skills Lab. For these skills you may need to run content-specific sessions to fully develop the skills. However, we like to encourage you to research other approaches as well.
Business modeling
- Explain the rationale of the business model canvas and social entrepreneurship.
- Embrace uncertainty - Encourage learners to make their assumptions about ‘why something would work’ explicit and test these through gathering data (e.g. talk to a customer, make a prototype).
- Expose learners to various ways in which business processes can be executed.
- Connect the small to the big: how can it grow? How can it be sustained? How can it impact the planet and people more positively?
- Use actual experience in running business processes to reflect on what worked and didn’t and CONTINUOUSLY review the business model.
Note: Acumen+ offers online courses on business modelling. In March 2019 they will start a new online module on business models for social impact, check it here.
Product making
- Choose product making skills that only require available resources, provide opportunity for value addition and are marketable.
- Use a combination of demonstration and learning by doing.
- Ensure the group size allows for sufficient individual mastery and exposure to ‘touching’ the material. Note: be cautious of gender dynamics in handling equipment, in science for example boys are more likely to hold equipment and execute the actual process.
- Connect the product making skill to other business and employability skills (e.g. marketing, business modelling, etc.)
- Take safety precautions like hygiene, protective wear, carefully handling sharp objects, health, expiry dates, etc.
- Stimulate learners to use product making skills they or people around them have.
Note: Educate! has developed a product making skills bank, check it out here (coming soon)
Opportunity identification
- Expose learners to real-life problems and needs (like PEDVU) and engage them in a deeper analysis of causes.
- Show lots of examples of different (social) enterprises to open up the learner's minds.
- Use frameworks and step-by-step processes to help learners innovate existing aspects of their business.
- Reframe problems into opportunities, both for starting a business as well as strengthening business processes.
- Help learners identify their unique strengths and passions as a starting point for their entrepreneurial ideas.
Project & self-management
- Encourage goal setting as a habit, a routine. For example practice setting goals for the day.
- Expose learners to different self-management strategies and encourage them to find their individual style.
- Encourage learners to reflect on practical experiences of working in a team and draw lessons from these experiences regarding teamwork.
- Encourage a practice of planning, reporting & reviewing plans.
Resource mobilization & management
- Create simple tools to manage finances and inform decisions they make at start-up phase (e.g. budget, money calendar). Avoid the tendency of many programs to include the ‘classic’ financial management tools that may not be relevant for learners.
- Expose learners to various examples of creative use of locally available resources.
- Challenge learners to work as a team in fundraising from planning to executing to determining how to use the resources.
- Build in assessment of financial decision making towards sustaining a business.
Sales and marketing
- Help learners identify the different business areas where they can add value (product design, market, distribution, impact).
- Engage learners in data collection to test assumptions and inform their innovations.
- Expose learners to multiple examples to broaden their horizon.
- Encourage learners to start selling actual products in available markets (e.g. visitation day, an auntie’s shop, etc.) and reflect on these experiences.
Assignment#3 Improve a group activity to boost one of the Entrepreneurship skills
Choose one of the following group activities pulled from the Skills Lab Starter Kit and make at least 3 changes to boost an Entrepreneurship skill of choice.
Note: Stay within the time allocated and work towards the lesson objectives.
Submit a 1 page document including:
- The Entrepreneurship skill you selected and why you think this activity currently does not bring out this skill optimally.
- A new step-by-step activity guide to strengthen the selected skill.
- A description of how you predict the changes you made will improve the selected skill (share with us some new resources you found on this topic).
- Criteria the facilitator can use to assess whether learners acquired the skill.
Note: The improvement should include at least 3 significant changes to the activity.
Option #1 Entrepreneurship 'Business Growth Strategies'
LWBAT:
- Develop their business clubs by applying appropriate business growth strategies
Group activity (35 minutes)
The teacher assigns each of the groups with one business growth strategy below.
- Bundling
- Promotion and discount
- Developing new product
- Franchising
- New distribution channels.
He /She moves around the groups guiding the discussions and supporting learners accordingly as they answer the given questions.
- Where does the given growth fall? (internal or external growth strategy)
- What are the activities will be done to apply the given strategy in the club?
- When will the given activities be applied?
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of the given business growth strategy?
Option #2 Entrepreneurship 'Effective Communication'
LWBAT:
- Communicate effectively to their customers on the new and improved products in their business clubs.
Group activity (35 minutes)
Scenario: Given that the school business club wants to inform its customers about its new products and how special they are.
Learners in their groups will discuss how they can use the given means of communication to effectively communicate to the customers (customers can be from school or non-school community).
The teacher assigns each of the groups with one of the forms of effective communication below.
- Letter
- Telephone
- Emails
- Face to face
- Posters or banners
He /She moves around the groups guiding the discussions and supporting learners accordingly as they answer the given questions.
Option #3 Christian Religious Education 'Smoking'
LWBAT:
- Analyse dangers of smoking to an individual and community at large.
- Advise smokers to adopt other forms of good leisure activities rather than smoking.
Group Activity Practice: (40 Minutes)
- Divide students into 5 skills lab teams.
- Each group will develop an anti-smoking skit bringing out:
- Reasons why people smoke
- Dangers of smoking
- Other forms of good leisure activities
Teacher gives students fifteen (15) minutes to practice the scene before the actual presentation.