Role of NEP in making entrepreneurs of tomorrow

Entrepreneurship definitely requires several ingredients and they have to be instilled in the students by integrating them in the day-to-day learning and across all subjects. It starts with a mindset change of looking at all things with an entrepreneurial angle – questioning the status quo, playing with your imaginative, innovative & creative skills, seeking opportunities, finding solutions, risk taking and failure embracing abilities, an open and adaptive mindset, the ability to influence others, being a team player & leader, having analytical and financial skills, and being a sales man too. — Nandita Sethi

Entrepreneurship is a quality that one can't inherit. It's something that is burned in the flames of challenges and skills. You cannot just start a new venture by suddenly investing some money.

One must have a particular skill set, analysis power, handling situations and coping up with a team. NEP being on board has led the minds of the parents and children in a little fuss as to what dimension they need to get in order to have an uppercut on learning these skills.

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Speaking with The Hans India, Nandita Sethi, founder of Entrepreneur Zone has shared her point of view related to the entrepreneurial dimension this policy provides.

Firstly, she shared her overall view about the policy. Shedding light on the policy she said, While the Indian education system, though one of the credible ones among developing nations, does still leave a lot to be desired, especially on the entrepreneurial front. Somehow, the narrative of higher education for many years has always been to provide knowledge and skills to people to enable them to find gainful employment and therefore the focus has always been on nurturing those aspects, which lead them there.

Right from school our system unfortunately has always been to learn & excel the existing body of knowledge (which is fine) rather than creating an innovative and entrepreneurial mindset (which needs to be furthered). The NEP- 2020- no doubt, takes a leap forward by, on one hand promising to make sweeping reforms in education and research, on the other hand it aims to create new possibilities for life-long learning, besides making it industry-oriented with emphasis on entrepreneurship.

She hopes that it will be implemented in the same spirit that it is penned down. For this we should whole heartedly start thinking from top to bottom, with an entrepreneurial mindset.

The economy has been quite uncertain in the last few years. Some of the industries have gone obsolete. Upon being asked whether she thinks multiple skill oriented classes will be beneficial or should we just stick to one domain to gain expertise, she replied that The students definitely should be given multiple skills to develop their personalities and potential, not because they may have to problems with finding a job, but to enable them to explore their skills and passion At a school stage, only by giving them multiple skill exposure will they be able to decide what they are good at and what they love doing. If they can find an intersection of this, they probably can narrow down on the scope of the area they want to further specialize in.

While many businesses and industries have gone in the red, it is mostly because that particular business or domain is getting automated and artificial intelligence and machine learning is taking over many manual activities. So, it's time to innovate so that you can beat obsolescence, an innovation is an important ingredient of entrepreneurship.

And it's also time to learn new skills that didn't previously exist. People, businesses or countries that don't catch up with the innovation cycle will surely get left behind, so the education policy too has to keep abreast with the latest skill and knowledge requirements and change the curriculum & pedagogy as often as required.

Speaking of the rudimentary as well as relevant skills that need to be rooted in a child so that he or she grows their mind in an entrepreneurial way, the prime thing that she thinks is essential is having an experimental attitude. Every theory and law that's given has to be experimented and experienced first-hand so as to give an experience of actually inventing it.

Students in some schools today have Tinkering Labs. So, they should be allowed to tinker around and discover a lot of stuff themselves instead of giving it just in a classroom. That will help create an innovative mindset and also help in undertaking risk. Family and society also have a role to play here. They too need to encourage youngsters to take up risk. Most of the time the society is risk averse and wants a straighter forward route to everything.

It could be a cultural thing, but it surely helps if people around you from home, to school to friends and relatives encourage young minds to take the risk to follow their passion. Besides this, several small initiatives can be taken up within the education system to encourage risk taking – like the students should run most of the business in the institution – from getting admissions, running canteens, managing hostels and administration, to doing events and student recruitments. This would train them in risk taking and conducting business.

Last but definitely not the least she shared valuable tips for all those who want to become entrepreneurs.

First thing is that we should allow the students to explore and develop their entrepreneurial appetite. So,the choice to do so should be available in the education system not just in words but in spirit too. If they have chosen to take on an entrepreneurial journey, then they need to understand that they have to give their all. They cannot be doing multiple things and have to have a laser focus on the area they are working on. They need to do a lot of research in the domain to understand what is the business in that segment like -what's the market like, what innovations are happening in the sector.

They may have taken on some vocational skills in the domain to be able to better understand the technical part and also do some learnings in business to know how to manage a business. They have to operate in the ecosystem and make a lot of networks as much of business happens through networks. They can take up working with industry for some time to understand its nuisances. They should never fear failure as that's a part of the journey. So, an important tip would be to embrace failure quickly and don't waste it, rather learn from it.