6 Benefits of having an entrepreneurial mindset from an early age
What is the meaning of an entrepreneurial mindset?
The set of skills that allows people to identify opportunities and make the best out of them, learn from the failures and setbacks encountered, and succeed with time, comprises an entrepreneurial mindset. Research on numerous fronts shows that many employers and decision-makers value an entrepreneurial mindset. It also enhances the value and educational performance needed to attain business goals .
Gone are those days when students used to heavily depend upon traditional methods of learning to score only good marks in examinations. To be successful in today’s generation, it is much necessary that one prepares themselves holistically. This is where the entrepreneurial mindset comes into play.
Nowadays various governments around the world are specifically focusing on developing entrepreneurial mindset among young children by introducing the needful courses, workshops, and sessions in their curriculum.
One of our recent collaborations was with the Haryana Government during Start-up Saksharta to Saksham Abhiyan in schools ,where the focus was to instil confidence and required skills among students from an early age so that they can take up start-up ventures.
Various skills like observing the need of the society around oneself, problem identification, available and potential solutions, developing the product for solving the problem, learning, re-learning, and unlearning, constitute basics on entrepreneurial mindset.
Need for entrepreneurship in early education and curriculum:
- To upskill students with 21st century skills like collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, communication prowess, problem-solving, and perseverance. This would help them keep up the pace with the modern generation.
- Triggers motivation and high level of engagement among children to create meaningful values for others based on the knowledge they have acquired.
- Discover their area of interest and develop aptitude for the value creation. From an early age, they start developing the habit of ideating and implementing on their own and understanding the issues surrounding them.
- Understanding to take failure as a building block of success. Students who try different types of ideas may fail due to various reasons, but continuous experimentation gives them inspiration to learn from the failure, rather than getting demotivated.
-Instils the values of teamwork and ethics in the student when entrepreneurship is introduced at an early stage. This can come with more exposure towards different activities that aim at working in a group, finding a solution together, and taking accountability of the work.
- Teaches students to deal with tasks patiently. Developing an entrepreneurial temperament requires a lot of effort and sometimes to see your ideas getting fruitful, one has to wait a lot. This helps them develop patience and composure which comes handy when they grow old too.
All the skills that a student can gain through early exposure to entrepreneurial mindset helps them progress in their career. Even if they opt for a job in self, corporate or government setup, the qualities help them to become ‘best in their work.’
Reports and Statistics by the different organisation:
Recent data by the United Nations suggests that “to meet youth employment needs, an estimated 600 million jobs need to be created in the next 15 years.” However, the number of young people not in a job, education, or training is high, and a lot of work needs to be generated to meet the job needs of this demographic.
The Government of India emphasises instilling entrepreneurship in the early years of education, which would result in more and more quality employment generated in the future. In fact, the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship collaborated with Purdue University and the Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India to develop a broad curriculum that would cover schools too.
Reports from OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) suggest that entrepreneurial education has seen exponential growth in higher education institutions throughout the world. The United States saw the course offered to 1200 business schools in 2001 alone.
· Entrepreneurial temperament from a young age impacts the job generation in the MSME sector too, where the majority of young people from small cities are employed. It is a major engine for the economic growth of any country. Currently, China leverages 60% of GDP from the MSME (Micro, Small &