When, two weeks ago, I wrote in this column that “the level of our education system seems directly proportional to the level of unemployment it generates,” I was criticized for such blasphemy.
However, to my pleasant surprise, I found strong support to address this problem from the National Blended Education Task Force featuring the top education policy makers in the country. And, that makes me very hopeful that we will not let our demographic dividend go to waste.
Indeed, this opportunity, as defined by the UN Population Fund -- the economic growth potential that can result from shifts in a population’s age structure, mainly when the share of the working-age population (15 to 64) is larger than the non-working-age share of the population (14 and younger, and 65 and older) -- will last till the mid-2030s for Bangladesh, and is an extremely critical component of achieving our 2041 targets of being a high-income country.
And, nurturing entrepreneurs is vital for leveraging our demographic dividend.
The big question is: Do we delegate that role to the market only or can our education system play a role?
Entrepreneurs are societal problem solvers, first and foremost
If we look at some of the recent tremendously successful start-ups in Bangladesh such as Pathao, Shopup, 10 Minute School, and chaldal.com, among others, it is clear to discern that the focus has always been to solve very specific problems of society.
The Pathao founders wanted to figure out how to go from Gulshan to Dhanmondi in half an hour taking goods and people. Being able to do that would address the major transportation productivity-killer in Dhaka.
The Shopup founders realized that millions of SMEs around the country needed access to finance for their small businesses, but they were not bank-worthy. At the same time, they lived an analog existence in Digital Bangladesh. Out came the solution of digital financial inclusion for SMEs.
The 10 Minute School entrepreneurs saw a huge market where the adolescents and youth were hungry to gain the right skills for the market but did not have the patience, time, or financial resources to enrol in time-consuming, expensive, and often unfocused, courses. The most productive and fun site for micro-skills was born.
The chaldal.com founders rightly identified that the urban middle class were increasingly busy with the mounting pressures of jobs, studies, and life but, at the same time, were rapidly connecting to digital lifestyles. Why not allow them to buy groceries seamlessly? The pandemic accelerated this adoption in urban areas tremendously, and even spread to peri-urban areas.
In each case, the entrepreneurs solved the problems of lack of access, low efficiency, and high time wastage by daring to question the status quo, taking risks, and coming up with out-of-the-box solutions.
They saw market growth for themselves and were able to tap into unprecedentedly large private investment, not only from within the country, but also from abroad. In fact, the mature global venture investment they attracted is testament to the fact that they had identified very focused problems in the market and society, devised user-friendly solutions to address them, and worked relentlessly to acquire the right skills and resources to scale up the solutions.
Can our education system nurture this solution-development innovative mindset? It is not enough for a would-be entrepreneur to say: “I will start a technology company.” He or she has to solve a problem of society for which there is enough demand to pay for the solution. And, then, scale up the solution with grit and determination against all odds. It is not enough to simply devise a solution and keep it on the shelf without capacity to scale up.
We have seen too many instances of brilliant young people venturing into entrepreneurship without taking the problem-solution approach, thereby not becoming successful and getting discouraged about entrepreneurship. Sometimes, the problem is not well understood, and the entrepreneur first devises a hammer and then goes out looking for the nail. This is a recipe for disaster.
Entrepreneurship micro-skills through e-learning
I will go out on a limb to say that well-known business schools do not nurture entrepreneurial skills. Typically, they create highly paid executives and managers in large companies, often multinationals, because the graduates start earning hefty incomes without waiting for “return on investment” in their start-ups five to seven years down the line. Also, these positions are safer because one does not take the risk of uncertainty associated with start-ups. It is true of business schools in Bangladesh and it is true of the US boasting some of the top business schools in the world.
So, I will advise looking to business schools not for comprehensive entrepreneurship education but for specific entrepreneurship micro-skills.
These are specific skills that should be delivered -- not in the form of several-month long diploma resulting in not-so-useful certificates -- in customer-centric design, marketing, fund-raising, accounting, people management, partnership development, MIS, and a few other areas, that will empower the budding entrepreneur to build and sell products and services that customers want, raise and keep track of money, and manage the people that are the most important assets of the company. These are what make an entrepreneur successful, but unfortunately, an entrepreneur learns all the grammar of entrepreneurship by making mistakes, often too costly for survival.
In reality, our education system can impart the grammar through micro-skills and accelerate the practice of entrepreneurship, and help the country leapfrog.
A vital realization here is that a substantial number of these micro-skills can be developed through e-learning micro-courses. The online micro-content can be blended with other in-person courses for students, and real-life experiences of professionals, would-be entrepreneurs, and struggling entrepreneurs.
10 Minute School and various online job sites are already delivering such content, but a holistic national plan is necessary for this based on market demand. Not only today’s market demand, but tomorrow’s as well.
Silver lining in BEFA
My recent brainstorming on the Blended Education Framework for All (BEFA) for higher education at the University Grants Commission (UGC) regarding nurturing entrepreneurship through e-learning was very encouraging.
UGC, which regulates, guides, and sets trends for our 160+ institutions of higher education, is appropriately positioned to incentivize these institutions to create, certify, and deliver micro-courses. We must have a blend of successful entrepreneurs who will provide the raw content along with the existing business faculty of higher education who will curate them into deliverable micro-courses.
I was truly inspired to see that BEFA is incorporating entrepreneurship education with serious long-term planning and thereby making our higher education much more market-focused. Not only today’s market, but tomorrow’s as well.
Through BEFA, we will not only leverage technology to improve educational attainment, but also achieve what we must achieve to build the Bangladesh of 2041: Nurture a country of problem solvers, innovators, and entrepreneurs instead of killing their spirits.
Anir Chowdhury is a US tech entrepreneur turned Bangladeshi government entrepreneur serving as the Policy Advisor of a2i in ICT Division and Cabinet Division supported by UNDP.
