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SME's - entrepreneurs with no skills

Written by: Dr. Rob Smorfitt

Article Overview: South African universities have come under fire from the Minister of Education for producing too many arts graduates. What is the true cause of the problem?

SME's - entrepreneurs with no skills

South African universities have come under fire from the Minister of Education for producing too many arts graduates. What is the true cause of the problem?

The problem rests with our teachers at high school level. Most teachers are not numerate and this reflects in their inability to teach the relevant subjects properly. As a consequence we have poor results in the numerate subjects. So universities are receiving people who choose the arts because they have no chance of passing a degree that requires any level of numeracy. Universities do compromise the situation further by offering management degrees that do not require numeracy. What use is a manager who has no understanding of finance and budgets? What chance do they have to succeed as an entrepreneur?

Unfortunately, 17 years after apartheid has ended, there is no noticeable improvement in the education that black people in South Africa are receiving. Attempts to lower the standards by reducing the pass mark and such like, are a sop to the politicians responsible, but still leave these poor people essentially uneducated.

Our ability to grow SME's will be impacted by these facts unfortunately, and there will be limited jobs available in large business and government for these people, and therefore unemployment will continue to be perpetuated by the current circumstances.

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Article Tags: entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, numeracy, poor education, SME, SMME, Smorfitt, university, wrong degrees offered



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