Schools are supposed to prepare children for the real world. Entrepreneurs day at St John’s Preparatory School in Johannesburg gives pupils a taste of what real trading is all about.
On July 15 there was an air of anticipation at the school. As the bell rang, the relative calm exploded into activity. Footsteps pounded on the passages and cellphones were clutched to ears. This was a frenzy of pre-market anxiety.
The idea is to give students the chance to try their hand at trading. Not only do they have to market their products beforehand, they have to buy stock, sell stock, rent stands, organise electricity, donate a 10th of their earnings to charity and work out their profits or losses.
This annual event at St John’s is the climax of a term’s work. Many of the pupils’ subjects are geared towards the event.
Says Mike Workman, principal of St John’s Preparatory School, ‘Entrepreneurs’ day is not an isolated event. We are hoping that what they learn in this day will be a lesson they will learn for life.
‘So much criticism of education is that you finish school and you have a piece of paper that is meaningless. The education of old did not teach you life skills. The whole point of entrepreneurs’ day is that it teaches our young boys the basic principles of business.”
Workman believes that, although many of the pupils at the school have parents who run successful businesses, the children have to learn by themselves.
‘We keep the budgets small and we encourage creative thinking. They can come to me for a loan of R25. I’m known as the ‘Minister of Finance’. If I think their business venture has potential to make money, then they must sign an agreement,” he says.
‘They have to agree that if they make a loss on the day, they will repay the loan or do certain forfeits. These are minor things like sanding the desks, weeding the gardens or picking up litter.”
The pupils have to come up with a business plan, a marketing proposal, an advertising campaign and a slogan. They have to fill in application forms for a stand and if they enter into partnerships they must sign agreements.
Mothers who help have to be paid for their services and the boys have to draw up a contract of employment.
Grade 7 pupil Mohammed Moti was one of three pupils in charge of the registration of stands. These learners called themselves RFM Attorneys.
‘We had to refuse some people stands because their paperwork was not in order and their budgets were all wrong,” says Mohammed.
‘First we were doing one or two applications a day and then there was a last-minute rush. We had to give people receipts for their stands and give them trade licences. It was quite fun.”
The event has been happening at St John’s for five years and each year it has changed slightly. Workman describes it as a work in progress.
For the boys a big part of the attraction is the girls – they are the customers. Two local girls’ schools, Rodean and St Mary’s, are invited to attend and spend their pocket money on the products and services.
There is no shortage of creativity in the variety of stalls and stock on offer. One boy made Japanese sushi and assures sceptical adults that he made them himself. His sales pitch is convincing and they are sold by midday.
Simon Bosman, a Grade 7 pupil, thought he would attract customers to his stall by wearing a large colourful hat. He was selling pencils with suckers on the end for a reasonable R3. ‘People are always chewing the end of their pens, so I thought it would be a good idea to give them something to chew on.”
A product that had mums enthralled were ‘tweetie sweeties” – pine cones decorated with bird seeds stuck together with peanut butter and guaranteed to attract birds to the garden. A poem on the packaging was a winner.