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Friday March 29, 2024

Growth linked to entrepreneur education

By our correspondents
February 10, 2017

LAHORE

A conference was organised by FPCCI in collaboration with a non-profit organisation on “Inclusion of entrepreneurial theme in educational syllabus: the way forward to inclusive tolerant, peaceful and prosperous Pakistan”

Representative of FPCCI, Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry, academia, media, civil society, financial sector and senior journalists participated in the conference.

Participants of the conference discussed the seriousness of the issues, including social, political, economic and education in country.

During the discussion, it was highlighted that many European countries had included entrepreneurship as a key competence in their wider education policies, and developed specific strategies for entrepreneurship education.

They are creating entrepreneurial societies, so their main goal in education system is to build a system which will eventually enable the development of society as a whole.

President of Mustaqbil, Rahat Babar shared with the participants the research that indicates that the success of the Chinese economy over the past two decades has been widely attributed to the entrepreneurial spirit and endeavour.

He said entrepreneur education was to give an opportunity to learners to explore, discover and develop their own skills and abilities. It can be included in any subject at any level from primary to PhD.

Entrepreneurship needs to be included as learning outcome, what the learners should know, understand and be able to do, achieve through the learning process.

Rahat Babar emphasised that entrepreneurship was a necessary ingredient for stimulating economic growth and employment opportunities in all societies. In the developing world, successful small businesses are the primary engines of job creation, income growth, and poverty reduction.

Therefore, government support for entrepreneurship is a crucial strategy for economic development.

Entrepreneurial activity leads to economic growth and helps to reduce poverty, create a middle class, and foster stability. It is in the interest of all governments to make and implement policies to foster entrepreneurship and reap the benefits of its activity. Sadly, Pakistan has no policy, regulatory regime, or supporting and creating business culture or entrepreneurship, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and women small and medium enterprises (WSMEs), in particular. We have to empower youths to become job creators instead of job seekers, he said.

More than 60 percent of Pakistan’s population is under the age of 30. Women in Pakistan need education and empowerment for inclusive engagement in order to act and contribute to the society as an equal pillar.

Legislative support, institutional protection, societal inclusion, and attitudinal change are needed on the part of society as a whole to allow women to stand at their rightful place as equal decision-makers in family, community and the national level.

We need to create entrepreneurial culture for inclusive, tolerant, peaceful and prosperous Pakistan, he concluded.

Regional vice-chairman, FPCCI, Manzoor-ul-Haq Malik said, as a matter of fact, the reform process needs mass sensitisation, proactive planning and policy implementation.

Sensitisation of stakeholders, advocacy for friendly laws, presenting the entrepreneurial theme as a career option to youths, establishing business incubation centres, at public and private level, highlighting the entrepreneurial theme in media, building positive images of entrepreneurs are the ingredients leading to development.

Pakistan’s demographic cycle should reach its peak in 2030, when the working-age population touches 67 percent. To absorb such an influx requires GDP to grow from 7 percent to 8 percent annually. Such increased economic output will only be achieved if the country is able to establish vibrant markets and an enabling environment, achieved through sustained human capital investment. This will create a new productivity paradigm away from the brick and mortar traditions, and centered on technology, entrepreneurship and innovation, Manzoor-ul-Haq concluded.

The conference endorsed the need to include entrepreneurial theme in the educational syllabus, and highlighted the need of creating partnership between all stakeholders to create the culture of entrepreneurship at social, cultural and economic level. It is therefore fundamentally imperative as a component to have the entrepreneurial theme in the educational syllabus, to develop the generation to compete in the 21st century, the conference concluded.