2. Education, Employment, Higher Education And
VET – Does Entrepreneurship Fit?
From a policy and program point of view, in Australia, there is strong
support for business growth, innovation and startups,
Innovation policy was at the top of the Council of Australian
Governments (COAG) Industry and Skills Council meeting.
Recent Australian Government announcements include:
$5 Billion Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility
Grants to trigger investment and growth in Melbourne’s North
$7.3m to support innovative Australian companies
Time is right for Sydney Silicon Harbour
3. Austrade
Austrade has also established a Free Trade Agreement
Training Provider Grantto “… help Australian small and
medium-sized enterprises and stakeholders understand how
to use and access FTAs with Korea, Japan, and China.” So it
seems we have improving policy setting for innovation and
startups in the Industry, Innovation and Science portfolios,
Trade and Investment but what about education,
employment, higher education international education
and Vocational higher Educational employment Training
(VET)
4. Whilst we focus on innovation, commercialization of ideas we
don’t seem to talk as much about entrepreneurship, essentially
making sales (more often with social outcomes too) and being
able to do that on a big, global scale.
And please don’t misunderstand the key message in this blog
post. This is not about government giving grants, funding or
somehow subsidizing businesses as a true enterprise must be
able to do this for itself. Moreover, this is about including
entrepreneurship and/or entrepreneurial experiences in
education, employment and VET. Because more Australians
need to see that they can be entrepreneurs, earlier in their life
without it being seen as too risky or not a real job.
5. Can Entrepreneurship Be Taught?
Short answer is probably not but entrepreneurial activities and experiences
should be embedded in all levels of education
Now Gary Vaynerchuk builds businesses and he believes
that Entrepreneurship: Can’t Be Taught (NB. Gary swears a bit, just so
you know) describing entrepreneurship as something much more
rugged.
If you haven’t heard of Gary V, fresh out of college he took his family
wine business and grew it from a $3M to a $60M business in just five
years. Now he runs VaynerMedia, one of the world’s hottest digital
agencies.
Along the way he became a prolific angel investor and venture capitalist,
investing in companies like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Uber, and
Birchbox before eventually co-founding VaynerRSE, a $25M angel fund.
Every young person should have exposure to multiple entrepreneurial
educational experiences from primary school.
6. Why is entrepreneurship not considered with Employment?
The Department of Employment has numerous programs aimed
at reducing unemployment including:
jobactive
National Work Experience Programme
Restart
Work for the Dole
When searching the website and programme guidelines
entrepreneurship is nowhere to be found other than self-
employment with the New Enterprise Incentive Scheme.
Imagine if a simple change of employment AND entrepreneurship
was included in all employment initiatives.
7. Why Is Entrepreneurship Missing In VET?
Underpinning Australia’s VET system is National Training
Packages outlining qualifications and skills described in
units of competency.
One of the biggest areas of gaps or mismatch from national
and state priorities in National Training Packages is
entrepreneurship. Areas of identified gaps are for business
owners, employers, entrepreneurs (including intrapreneurs,
social entrepreneurs) and startups.
8. Why Is Entrepreneurship Missing In VET?
Moreover, when looking at entrepreneurship, creativity, innovation and
growth, some of the current versions of units of competency are counter
intuitive. For example, entrepreneurs break rules, hustle, growth hack,
pitch ideas, validate minimum viable products and find problems.
In contrast, units of competency focus on following policies and
procedures, building relationships and networks (implying over the
longer term), managing sales, making presentations, analyzing market
opportunities and solving problems.
Whilst entrepreneurs don’t often choose formal training as their
preferred option for development, there is now an opportunity for the
next generation of Training Packages to focus on skills that encourage
the creation of jobs, international growth and entrepreneurs.
9. These small changes could make a big impact on Australia’s
economy, unemployment, and educational outcomes.
Entrepreneurship alongside innovation needs to be seeded and
encouraged across all portfolios, especially education,
employment and skills. This requires collaboration between
employment service providers, entrepreneurs, government,
industry, Registered Training Organizations, Schools, startups and
Universities
10. Thank You For Watching
Workforceplanningtools
Website: http://workforceplanningtools.com.au/
