/ 18 November 2010

‘SA should privatise school system’

South Africa should consider privatising its public school system to achieve value for money. Schools should be run by teachers with principals acting as chief executive officers (CEOs) as this will empower them to take quick decisions and ensure they deliver quality education.

This was said by Barry Kayton this week, at the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation’s roundtable discussion in Cape Town on the topic: Can entrepreneurship be taught [at school]?

Kayton, the CEO and co-founder of a software company called Cognician, said the South African education system does not deliver, despite billions of rands invested in it every year.

“In government when something does not work we throw money at it but in private business when something does not work it is completely shut down. Why can’t we do the same with our education?” asked Kayton.

According to Anthony Farr, Allan Grey Orbis Foundation’s CEO, the roundtable dialogue was held as part of this week’s global initiative to reflect on the importance of entrepreneurship particularly among the youth.

Recent statistics on the country’s unemployment rate show that 74% of youth are without “decent” work. It is believed that by making entrepreneurship part of the school curriculum this will provide opportunities for youth to become active participants in the mainstream economy.

Farr said he believes in the “power of education” and “supports an entrepreneurial way of thinking to empower future leaders in driving the country’s economic transformation”.

Meanwhile, discussion centered around issues such as how the teaching of entrepreneurship could be achieved, the level at which it could be taught at school and the role of government and other players.

Participants felt that entrepreneurship should be taught in a simple and practical way by drawing on the realities and experiences of the youth. For this to happen, government and specifically the departments of education should tone down on bureaucracy, which often frustrates, instead of facilitating implementation of genuine initiatives.

One suggestion was that making information available about business opportunities that exist would also help galvanize more youth to come up with innovative and entrepreneurial initiatives.

There was agreement that entrepreneurship should be taught at an early stage of a learner’s development. Participants said most family businesses are run by managers whose parents showed them the ropes early on in their lives, explaining that these businesses contribute significantly to the economies of most developed countries.

“Government should deregulate certain sectors such as energy and IT so that more entrepreneurs can enter them. At the moment it is difficult to enter particularly the energy market [with Eskom being the sole player],” said Zaid Kriel, deputy editor of Leadership Online.

Rob Stead, CEO of the South African Institute of Entrepreneurship said they are working with schools to gather evidence to inform their interactions with government on how to implement entrepreneurship at schools.

Stead also observed the education system is driven by bureaucratic people who take decisions at a political level without involving non-government organisations.

Sibusiso Xaba, an Allan Grey Orbis Foundation fellow studying at the University of Cape Town, said that since becoming part of the foundation he has come up with viable and creative business ideas.

Xaba and his colleagues are running an entrepreneurship project in Khayelitsha to raise awareness about the benefits of entrepreneurship among the youth. He said the response was overwhelming and most youth are motivated to start their own businesses.