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Eskoms Entrepreneurship Education Simama Ranta 2012.

The premier event in South Africa that recognizes and rewards best practice

amongst secondary schools within the field of entrepreneurship is the Eskom

Entrepreneurship Education (EE) Simama Ranta. With the youth being the hardest

hit by unemployment, the competition is building a movement amongst schoolswho proactively prepare their learners to become creators of jobs rather than to be

job seekers. This powerful mission is being captured within the name of the event

EE Simama Ranta, which carries the meaning: strengthening the South African

economy through youth entrepreneurship.

An awards function of the 2012 event took place on 11 September at The Castle

in Kayalami where the national winning school, Sakhelwe High School from

Ladysmith in KwaZulu Natal was announced and received R25,000 to invest within

their learner driven entrepreneurship clubs. Eskom EE Simama Ranta exhibitions

by the nine provincial winning schools and entrepreneurship education workshops

had been presented from 13 until 16 September 2012, as an integral part of the

Business Opportunities & Franchise Expo at the Coca-Cola Dome. A teacher and

two learners from each of the provincial winning schools, who had been Eskom

guests for the week - engaged with around 3,000 visitors to their stalls over the

four days. A just reward for the pioneering work of the schools had been the many

new relationships with key decision makers that they established as a result of

their exhibits.

Eskoms EE Simama Ranta pursues impact to address the challenge that South

Africa has one of the lowest rates on entrepreneurship, within its population as

compared to other developing countries (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor). Thischallenge, together with the World Banks finding that entrepreneurship

represents one of the most effective ways to alleviate poverty - determines that

Simama Ranta follows a systemic rather than an isolated interventionist driven

approach. The foundation on which this event stands is based upon eleven

principles. Entrants have to build evidence on the eleven principles throughout

the year to enable them to enter, through a Portfolio of Evidence.

Briefly, these eleven principles are: clear definition of entrepreneurship in use;

relevant classroom content; facilitation approach; teacher development in EE;

practical use of theory; stakeholder engagement; monitor and evaluate theirefforts; learner driven; co-ownership within DoE; career options for entrepreneurs

explored and; outreach as well as networking strategies applied. Entries for the

2013 event are now open until June next year.

Eskoms EE Simama Ranta took place for the first time in 2010. The Board of the

Eskom Foundation decided to initiate this competition. The Foundation selected a

Public Benefit Organisation, EWET (Education With Enterprise Trust) based in

Harrismith, to partner with Eskom in the running of the competition. EWET was

established in 1992 and piloted the Youth Enterprise Society (YES) program

between 1994 and 1996. YES had been disseminated to 800 schools across South

Africa through generous corporate social investment support from a range of

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companies as well as through excellent collaboration with the Department of

Education.

EWETs national footprint enables it to deliver its entrepreneurship education

program that consist of in-school syllabi materials, YES clubs and Simama Ranta

competitions (both for individual learners and for schools). A thorough externalevaluation report published in 2008 confirmed the substance of EWETs approach.

It is from this national base that the provincial winning schools of Eskoms EE

Simama Ranta 2010 evolved.

However, the winning schools of 2012 had amongst them schools, who presented

approaches and models that are unique to them. Something that excited the

organizers! The implication is that South Africa is building its knowledge base as

well as base of practitioners within the field of in-school entrepreneurship to allow

for diverse approaches. One of the aims of Eskoms EE Simama Ranta is to

identify a range of different approaches and models that prove effective within

different settings in order to create potential for such approaches to be

disseminated to similar settings.

A core output of in-school entrepreneurship education is embedded

entrepreneurial thinking. It is about the creation of entrepreneurial intent. As such,

entrepreneurship education at school level is vastly different from any after-school

approach where the primary emphasis is upon business start-up.

Now, imagine if the South African youth are able to build a business or

organization from practically nothing rather than to only work with what is. They

make things happen for themselves by accepting responsibility, rather than toblame. They turn set-backs into an opportunity rather than to be a victim. They

see a gap. They sense an opportunity. They maintain effort until their objectives

had been met. They build a founding team of expertise. They initiate and do. They

have the know-how to find, marshal and control resources. They take calculated

risks.

Let us work towards the attainment of such an entrepreneurial culture amongst

our youth in South Africa?