Can Student Engineers be taught to become Entrepreneurs?

Chief Minister of Kerala has announced that Entrepreneurship will be taught as a compulsory subject in the BTech curriculum. Embedding Entrepreneurship into Engineering Curriculum- The Pros & Cons .. Let's see that.

The Positives 

• As the CM himself suggested, considering the rising level of unemployability of Engineers of the state, this could help in at least developing skill sets, even if their enterprise fails.
• There would be an upsurge in the entrepreneurial  mindset of the society and young engineers will come up with crazy ideas of entrepreneurship and there would be a more positive ecosystem for start ups. 
• There are over 50000 Engineering seats and if fifty percent of them try to come up with some Start up , it will be 25000 start ups in an year. Now, fifty percent seems to be too ambitious, let's take 10 percent- 5000 start ups. And imagine, out of this 10 percent succeeds to get angel /seed funding - that could be 500 start ups in an year.. which is quite impressive for the Govt ! 
• By Promoting Entrepreneurship, probably, we could reduce unemployability of Engineers and the remaining "unemployability" could be because of entrepreneurial ability.

The Possible Pitfalls

• Firstly, the biggest challenge is the question of how the curriculum will be taught. If it is the theory of entrepreneurship, its easy and we already have 100 s of books on the same. The faculty  can make the students write assignments and give marks on "what are the challenges of an entrepreneur?" , "how to get funds?" etc etc . But if the curriculum needs to be skill based - the next big question arises - " Who will teach that?"  and "Can entrepreneurial skills be taught, without practicals?"
• Secondly, the current status of "project work" done by our Engineering students itself is quite pathetic. Most of the students end up copying and pasting the projects done by their seniors or by IT training institutes. I am wondering how "Entrepreneurship Project" will end up ! 
• Thirdly, the big question - " Is Engineering course meant for developing Technocrats or Entrepreneurs?" . If all our Engineers take up business , who will solve technological issues that our nation or society faces? ; who will design or create products for common man? who will be ready to work in a bigger technological organisation? 
• In the above statistics, imagine, we get 500 successful start ups . Let's see what could happen to the 4500 "Failed Start ups" . The 20 - 22 yr old student entrepreneur could be devastated to find that his first attempt with great dreams is shattered. There is another possibility that these kids will lose focus on their studies and end up having lots of back papers. The psychology of  entrepreneurship is simple : "Once an entrepreneur , always an entrepreneur". This can prove a bit harmful, coz the young failed entrepreneur could deny the failure and cling on to the failed enterprise for long. Similarly, the failure at a young age could mean one thing:-  Learn from  the mistakes and re do . But its easier said than done. We will need a very strong mentoring and coaching platform to provide support these start ups as well as provide career counselling services to the failed start up founders. 
• There is strong evidence suggesting a need for experience of entrepreneurship before anyone tries it for themselves. There have been various studies which indicate that many people running successful ventures had picked up the skills and capability to run their business through the experience of being an employee in another business before they started up.  It will be better if the Entrepreneurship curriculum is designed by incorporating practical sessions along with seasoned entrepreneurs.

To conclude, I am reminded of the quote , "Idea is good, but leg is mine!" 

The whole concept of Entrepreneurship education for BTechs should be looked up with a bit more care than just a political announcement. I would also like to reiterate the fact that Engineers need to be Engineers first . Technical skills and soft skills necessary for work place survival should be placed more importance than trying to build an entrepreneur out of every engineer!. But yes, Genuine entrepreneurship happens as a result of a combination of factors which will vary from one individual to the next, in terms of their personal characteristics and entrepreneurial acumen, and the route they have taken into the world of business enterprise. Such Student entrepreneurs cannot be "produced" but they "happen by themselves" !! 

CeeVee 

September 14, 2015