Ghanaian entrepreneur Afadi Tetteh has joined calls by entrepreneurs in the country for government to create an enabling environment for small businesses to thrive.
According to him, entrepreneurship does not require just money but emotional strength, mentorship, and education.
Speaking on the Morning Starr with Francis Abban, the woodworker said “All we need is the enabling environments for our businesses to grow. Work on the cedi to dollar issue. If the dollar rate is going up then it means the business environment is not enabling for us entrepreneurs, I can’t buy my machines and the shipping rate is high so I buy plywood today at 65 cedis and next week it’s 75 cedis”
He added, there must be serious education about entrepreneurship in our classroom.
“Lecturers are supposed to invite entrepreneurs in the field to teach students practical facts about entrepreneurship and not just teach them what the book is saying.”
“The things we learn in school about entrepreneurship is 20% of what entrepreneurship is. When lecturers are having discussions on entrepreneurship, they should call us to teach the class.
“It should be as practical as possible, don’t come and tell us the things in the book that entrepreneurship is starting your own business because that is not what it is, entrepreneurship is emotional and a lot more. Let them know everything it entails, teach them to go into a partnership than going solo because it’s not easy and you can’t do it on your own”, he added.
“We encourage people who have business experience to please go back to the schools and talk to these students. Let them know exactly what it is, let them understand what they are getting into. You can’t succeed when you don’t know or are not well prepared for where you are going. So let us help the students to be more grounded in it. It shouldn’t be at the university level, let’s start this from the primary level”, he said.
Speaking on the Finance Minister’s entrepreneurship comment, he emphasized that, there should be a need to encourage mentorship and entrepreneurship speech should be given to students at the matriculation level and not at graduation.
Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh/103.5FM/Bernice Mensah
