How can Entrepreneurship Education Create Jobs in India?

How can Entrepreneurship Education Create Jobs in India?

How can Entrepreneurship Education Create Jobs in India?Indian economy is growing at a rapid pace. The growth rate of GDP was 7.3% in 2018 and it is expected to grow well above 7% in the coming years. However, the fastest growing economy of the world isn’t creating jobs like before. Latest data shows that in 2018, there were 18.6 million people without jobs in India and it is expected to reach 18.9 million in 2019.

Moreover, hiring in India’s formal job market is stagnant. In fact, the Indian job market is also highly skewed in favor of informal employment. Reports say around 8 in every 10 Indian workers are employed in informal sectors. That’s why entrepreneurship has come up as a sustained medium of education for employment. It will help create jobs in India. Generation of formal and productive employment depends on adequately skilled labor force, enabled through sustained human capital investments.

Entrepreneurship Education – How can it help Students transform from Job Seekers to Job Creators?

Entrepreneurship education provides required knowledge, skills, and motivation to students so that they can succeed in their entrepreneurial endeavors in different settings. In fact, this specialized education also helps to determine the student’s entrepreneurial orientation. Entrepreneurship education and training has been found highly effective in India and other similar developing countries. This is because they help to enlarge the pool of job creators as well as entrepreneurs.

That’s why entrepreneurship education puts major emphasis on 3 important ideas:

  • Develop a vast understanding about entrepreneurship
  • Acquire an entrepreneurial mindset
  • Develop a thorough understanding of operating an enterprise effectively

Now, let’s have a closer look at how entrepreneurship education in Indian business schools helps students to become entrepreneurs and job creators:

1. Develop a Vast Understanding about Entrepreneurship

All courses in Indian business schools teach entrepreneurship as a compulsory course. It helps the students to understand entrepreneurship. This not only inculcates interest among the students towards setting up their own enterprise but also provides them adequate exposure towards entrepreneurial skills.

A proper and vast understanding of entrepreneurship helps students start their entrepreneurial ventures. Even if they don’t start just after passing out of B-schools, this understanding will help them start something at a later stage of life.

2. Acquire an Entrepreneurial Mindset

Leading business schools in India have their own Entrepreneurship Cells, which are also known as E-cells. These specialized cells help in fostering entrepreneurial mindset among MBA students. For this, these Entrepreneurship Cells engage in multifarious activities:

  • Showcase success as well as failure stories by entrepreneurs.
  • Organize workshops to generate business ideas, plans, and funding.
  • Organize different kinds of events encouraging students to set up business ventures inside the campus related to entrepreneurship.
  • The Entrepreneurship Cells connect with different entrepreneurship networks for mentoring students.

All such activities help to create a positive mindset among students regarding entrepreneurship, which ultimately urges them to set up their own business ventures and become job-givers than job-seekers.

3. Develop a Thorough Understanding of Operating an Enterprise Effectively

Incubation centers are set up by the business schools where the students are given hands-on training on entrepreneurship, right from the stage of pre-ideation to setting up of enterprise. These centers also support their students by providing wide array of infrastructures, mentoring, and funding opportunity.

These incubation centers help the students set up their own start-ups and also appoint Incubation Managers for guiding and mentoring them to start their own enterprises successfully. Once the incubation period is complete, these start-ups move out of the campus as established businesses.

Indian Government’s Initiative to Skill Indian Youth and Create Entrepreneurs

Government of India and state governments have taken few initiatives to increase employability by closing skills deficit. Union government has launched Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (Skill India Mission) under the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) to help Indian youth improve industry-relevant skills for enhancing employability.

To create labor market ready young Indians, government has also launched multiple skilling initiatives such as:

  • National Apprenticeship Training Scheme
  • Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushal Yojana
  • National Urban Livelihoods Mission
  • National Rural Livelihoods Mission

To boost the job market and create more entrepreneurs, Indian government has also launched many national flagship schemes:

  • Make in India
  • Digital India
  • Start-up India
  • Stand-up India

These programs are meant to accelerate creation of enterprises of all sizes (micro, small, and medium), which will in turn help accelerate labor demand and create jobs.

UN Support in Skilling, Entrepreneurship and Job Creation

United Nations has its own priority group to skill job seekers, create entrepreneurs, and create quality jobs. That’s why they forge partnership with different levels of government for:

  • Strengthening labor market information systems
  • Extending support for school-to-work transition strategies
  • Improving employment and skills training programs at the state level by enhancing targeting, quality, and delivery

UN supports job creation and entrepreneurship strategies/programs for ensuring that different groups of people including youth, women, marginalized social groups, migrant workers, and others get quality employment. United Nations generally offer its support to India’s North Eastern states as well as other low-income states/districts. The efforts are concentrated in:

  • Development of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs)
  • Infrastructural development
  • Labor intensive manufacturing
  • Rural labor market development, and
  • Development of new sectors including green industry, affordable housing, and many more

The group has supported Mizoram government in skill-gap assessment. It has also helped in formulation of skill development and entrepreneurship policy. This UN group collaborates with MSDE to promote entrepreneurship.

This United Nations priority group is led by UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organization) and ILO (International Labor Organization). Other organizations that are included are:

  • International Organization for Migration (IOM)
  • United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
  • United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)
  • United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women)
  • United Nations Human Settlement Programme (UN Habitat)
  • United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
  • United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP)

Conclusion

Government and other international organizations have lately started providing emphasis on entrepreneurship education in India. However, it is still in the nascent stage. The business schools that provide such entrepreneurship education have to go a long way in designing entrepreneurial education programs for expanding knowledge as well as experience of students in entrepreneurship. Once these are done properly, students of entrepreneurship education in India can metamorphose from job seekers to job creators.