By Matata Mercy
Each and every year thousands of students are leaving universities and other higher institutions of learning with the hope of getting jobs after having completed their studies.
Many of these students have been disappointed and their hopes have been crushed.
Most of these students have grown up in a society where they have been told that education is the key to success.
They were told all they need to do is to go to school, study hard and get good grades.
Then the high paying jobs will be waiting for them and their life is sorted.
Myself, i believed in this analogy. I was wrong, these students were also wrong.
Truth be told, we have more job seekers in Uganda than the jobs themselves.
This simply means that the probability of ending up unemployed is very high.
So just telling our kids to go to school, work hard and get good grades so that they can land high paying jobs is to me bad advice.
The best solution to all this unemployment problem would be to promote an entrepreneurial culture among the youths.
If we build a culture of entrepreneurship among our youths, they will be able to find solutions to our problems while earning a living out of it.
The most fundamental question now is how can we create an entrepreneurial culture among Ugandan youths.
1.Learn from others who have done it.
In my own opinion, Ugandans can learn about an entrepreneurial culture by studying the people who have succeeded at building it.
Looking at Silicon valley, there is a lot that Ugandans can learn from there.
Ugandans can learn about the Venture capitalists and other investors that put their money into promising startups.
Since we lack the culture of investing, we can learn alot from these people.
We can learn about their strategies and how they do it.
2.Use success stories to inspire the youths.
One way to promote an entrepreneurial culture is to broadcast the success stories that have happened else where like the Silicon valley.
If the Ugandan media like the television stations and radios can create some programs focused on entrepreneurship where they profile people like Mark Zuckerberg,founder of Facebook, ElonMusk, Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.
Talking about how these people were able to build their companies.
I do believe some youths will pick some interest in starting their own entrepreneurial ventures.
3.Mindset change among Ugandans.
In order to create an entrepreneurial culture, we need a mindset shift among Ugandans.
In Uganda, entrepreneurship is looked at as a last resort and it is for failures.
Most people in Uganda believe business is for failures,people who have failed in school.
They look at business as the last option in their mind.
Most Ugandans believe the only way to be successful is to get a degree or diploma and then land a job.
They fail to notice that without entrepreneurship, jobs cannot exist.
The government cannot employ every graduate.
This mindset shift can be done by organising conferences for the youths and other interested parties and then teaching about the importance of entrepreneurship.
4.Encouraging youths to try out things.
Most Ugandans are afraid of failure.
In a school setting,failure is demonised and therefore Ugandans fear to fail.
I can vividly remember when i was still in school, the kids who scored the lowest grades were beaten and looked down by the teachers.
With that kind of background, many Ugandans are afraid of failing.
As a result of this, they fear trying out new things like starting a business or working on a new idea.
The ultimate solution to this is to start sensitising them about the importance of starting things by organising conferences about entreprenuership.
Telling youths that it is okay to fail and that through failure you will learn valuable lessons and also you can learn from the mistakes of other people who have started business so that you do not repeat them.
I hope these tips can help us to ignite an entrepreneurship culture in Uganda. Good luck.
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