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The main purpose for the Adopt a School project is to introduce entrepreneurship to school children while they are still at a very young age. This is in line with ENVISION 2030 that has refocused the University’s character from being a student-focused to people-centred and engaging University. Advocate Rory Voller, a Commissioner at CIPC, in his interview with Brand South Africa, said, “South Africa must teach innovation and entrepreneurship to schoolchildren; in the new world of work, problem solvers, collaborators and flexible creative thinkers will be most in demand. We need more creative thinkers; the world does not need more lawyers, it needs dreamers who will do extraordinary things. The world of work is being re-imagined, and South Africa needs to teach its youth to be more innovative and more entrepreneurial to create a sustainable and growing economy.ˮ
The project aims to train BEd students on entrepreneurship so that they can train learners. An entrepreneurship winter class will provide programmes that will teach learners more about entrepreneurship and financial literacy and a coordinator will monitor the implementation process. Project leaders will encourage learners to attend the students' entrepreneurship week seminar. They will also persuade business owners to come and talk to learners about running a sustainable business within their communities, providing skills training that they can use practically to sell goods at DUT’s fleamarket.
The cultivation of an entrepreneurship mindset and the acquisition of financial literacy at a young age is priceless as it will create employment, hope and a positive outlook, and will foster resilience, independence and critical thinking.
South Africa is very behind in terms of grooming children to become entrepreneurs, but this project will help to change this as well as provide them with a viable and availabl alternative to the shrinking job market. The project needs to be implemented in every single school in the country in order to change the perception that once a learner finishes school, their only option is to become employed within the public and private sector. This will open up the youth to opportunities that they can create for themselves and also help to play a role in improving the country’s economy.
Nontokozo Ngcobo: Centre Manager Email: NontokozoN@dut.ac.za Tel: 033 845 9056
January to December 2021
R70 000
