Photo via [Flickr]

A while ago, a friend of mine sent me the link below asking for my perceptive on the whole issue. We ended up discussing it through emails and since then I've had more people ask me my opinions regarding the whole issue and I just wanted to share a bit of what we talked about in the emails.

10/12/11 10:40 AM

Interesting - @youngenterprise poll find schools give young people wrong skills for work. Do you agree? http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/blog/can-entrepreneurship-be-taught

This is my 2 pence.

First of all – I think students are being taught throughout their time in education how to be excellent workers or employees. Students come out of education without no clue on how to link academia to real life work.

I know there’s been a lot of talk about introducing some courses about entrepreneurship to schools, I guess it makes sense with the low availability of jobs.

You could say companies understand that it's either they get top employees, those that are creative, innovative and passionate about the company(You see Start-ups do this a lot when hiring – Looking for start-up enthusiasts) or they end up losing sight of their industry, their competitors which can only result to one thing, going out of business.

I guess going back to if entrepreneurship can be taught – I don’t think so, I think an entrepreneur thrives on uncertainty (the thrill), freedom of thought, the ability of make gut-feeling decision, their ability to ignore the structured way of doing things.

The structured and business way of doing things will be what these courses will give, nothing special from what they could have gotten from studying business studies or go one level up – Isn’t this what MBA holders are for – Great managers, Great CEOS which I have no problem with.

Maybe through introducing entrepreneurship in schools, we can have more equipped and capable workers – I don’t think they can build entrepreneurs, I think that through this; they will build excellent, smarter, efficient and capable workers who will become great CEOs and managers.

Also, the only way I can see any form of entrepreneurship been awakened through education is by starting the process at the grassroot, rather than waiting for when students are in secondary schools/university to begin the process.

Instead of a degree being the only solution and option, entrepreneurship should be considered as another option just as valuable and prestigious as getting a degree from a respected university.

What are your thoughts?