OVERVIEW

Note: The purpose of this overview is to give the reader an introduction in EWET (Education With Enterprise Trust) and an overview of EWET's approach to Entrepreneurship Education (EE) in South Africa through EE Simama Ranta, Syllabi and the YES (Youth Enterprise Society) clubs.

Charles X belongs to the Youth Enterprise Society (YES) movement of South Africa. He is a YES Alumni who got involved in YES at the age of 14 when he joined as a YES Adventurer in Grade 8 in 2002. He had never heard of YES before and was therefore surprised to learn that YES already started in 1994 with a national presence since 1996. What gained his commitment to YES were his observations of how he himself and his fellow students and friends changed after they became YES members. Charles now has a flourishing wholesale business that supplies many Spaza shops with stock and he employs 4 people. At a tender age Charles became aware of the huge unemployment problem in his village with around 7 out of 10 young people older than 16 not engaged within legitimate economic activity. Some people from his village secured jobs in the urban areas that enabled them to send money home which relieved the poverty they experienced a little bit. Worst, was the many fellow young people who engaged within delinquent behaviour that resulted in HIV AIDS infections, jail terms to be served, death through violence or overdose, young girls with babies, etc. No surprise that the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor found repeatedly that South Africa has one of the lowest levels of entrepreneurial activity amongst all developing nations. This is what Charles and his fellow young entrepreneurs are changing with support from business, community structures and government. Being born in 1988, Charles went to school in 1994 when South Africa transformed itself to a democracy and he shared in the excitement of South Africa moving to the international centre stage with a respected leader Nelson Mandela. Throughout his schooling, Charles realised how important it is for him and for his generation to expand economic activity for their participation and coownership. Previous generations of young people played such a role in the political transformation, it is now our generations turn to contribute within an apolitical context also through hard work! We are expanding our economy to provide for opportunity for all through entrepreneurship. When asked what makes them different, Charles replies with a Jeffrey Timmons inspired response: we are able to create and build a business or organisation from practically nothing; make things happen for ourselves by accepting responsibility; we turn set-backs into opportunities; we see gaps; we sense opportunities; we maintain effort until our objectives had been achieved; we build founding teams of talents around us to complement our abilities in areas where we are less knowledgeable or skilled; we initiate and do; we have the know-how to find, marshal and control resources (often owned by others) and make sure we do not run out of money when we need it most and; we take calculated risks, both personal and financial to then do everything we possibly can to turn the odds in our favour. How did Charless life start to change so dramatically 9 years earlier? Ntate Tshepo, a well know person and respected leader within the Quntu community heard about YES from a family member who came home for the holidays, Me Tshidi. Me Tshidi is a teacher at a school where they

had been running with YES since 1996. Ntate Tshepo contacted the not-for-profit EWET (Education With Enterprise Trust) and enquired about the possibility to implement YES locally. Me Zini from EWET explained that Ntate Tshepo should: secure broad local community support for YES implementation; engage with their schools to secure interest; together with suggesting a local structure which could be capacitated with the YES program such that it could serve as the local host of YES. EWET undertook to: liaise with relevant Department of Education (DBE) management to gain approval; secure social investment support to enable delivery and; prepare supplies as well as services to be ready once other elements fell in place. EWET was very supportive to Ntate Tshepo and supplied information as soon as it was needed. EWET shared with Ntate Tshepo its experience that this approach is one of the ways that leads to YES delivery. Successful implementation also followed from EWET being approached by Corporate Social Investment initiatives who served as catalyst; as part of a bigger programmatic approaches that targets specific geographic areas; approaches from government departments; EWETs fund development, etc. Local community ownership always remains core to implementation and delivery. The community of Quntu gave their support for YES to address some of the challenges they face and nominated their Quntu Development Network (QDN) as the local agency to be capacitated by EWET. EWET assisted QDN to interact with local schools to recruit and select teachers and other suitable volunteers to be trained. The Entrepreneurship Education orientation workshop was presented jointly by QDN & EWET over a weekend, to 25 participants and the teachers were equipped to present YES to their schools. Me Mamahase was the teacher who introduced YES to all the learners at her school Setshaba Secondary - with Charles amongst them! Charles remained behind after the school gathering to apply to become a YES member. Thus Charles started his entrepreneurial journey 9 years ago. In-school, Charles realized how his teachers strengthened their entrepreneurship focused content in Economic and Management Science, Economy, Mathematics, Life Orientation, Business Studies and even within the languages through the utilisation of the Entrepreneurship Education materials of YES. He found that students knowledge of this content was evaluated within normal school assignments, tests and examination throughout Grades 8, 9, 10 and 11. What Charles enjoyed was the practical application of the theory within the YES clubs where they focused upon gaining competence in 17 areas. This was when they as fifteen members of the YES Adventurers (Gr. 8) and later as YES Pioneers (Gr. 9), YES Champions (Gr. 10) and as YES Entrepreneurs (Gr. 11) met, once a week. The other YES meeting was when all 60 members of their YES society came together. Here they elected their leadership who, guided by their constitution, made sure that they strictly followed parliamentary procedures for the running of their meetings. Their YES society had many successful projects to raise money for their club, as well as cleaning-up campaigns and other civic related initiatives. Charles thought back on the various leadership roles that he played within YES over the years and how he developed the skills that are so critical to him today. Being a club, he remember so well how members supported each other within the spirit of Ubuntu and formed relationships of importance to him even today. He smiles when he remembers how they often functioned similar to a 12 step program within the club to be there for each other when it happened that a

fellow member got caught-up with drugs or similar challenges and who struggled to heal. It still remains special to him that they were able to provide peersupport to so many people, including himself - who are successful today. The fact that more and more YES societies started to liaise spontaneously with each other represents for Charles a positive trend to enhance the impact within South Africa as a whole. YES Simama Ranta meaning young people empowering the South African economy through their entrepreneurial activities, represents the annual high-light of YES. Charles gained his first experience of the tough competitiveness of business within the context of Simama Ranta. The achievements of individual YES members, teams, clubs and of their whole school play a critical role to get through the qualifying rounds at municipal and district levels to be able to compete to represent the province at nationals. The eleven entrepreneurship education quality standards as provided by EWET guided Charles and everybody involved within Setshaba Secondary to prepare for Simama Ranta. The fact that this represents an open competition and that all South African secondary schools are able to compete in Simama Ranta, regardless of their involvement within YES or not, meant that Setshaba Secondary was truly the best in South Africa in 2010 in the delivery of entrepreneurship education, when they took national honours! As a YES Alumni in Grade 12 Charless involvement within his YES society was supportive to enable him to focus on the achievement of a good Grade 12 certificate, which he did. The support that he gave to his old school that lead to them winning national Simama Ranta three years after he left school, was purely on a voluntary basis in appreciation of what he gained. He furthermore volunteers one afternoon per school week to assist one of the teams (Adventurers, Pioneers, Champions or Entrepreneurs) with their work through their business competencies, since 2007. He was glad for his exposure to entrepreneurship from Grade 8 onwards as it pro-actively prevented him from being added to the statistics of out-of-school and unemployed youth. He furthermore keeps on updating his personal information at his YES club because of the importance of keeping track of each and every former YES member, to maintain the relationship. He is one of 60 Alumnus just from his club, while Setshaba Secondary has another 4 YES clubs based at the school. Various initiatives are being considered to support YES Alumni in business, a reality that Charles is excited about. Examples are: placements to gain experience; cooperative for YES Alumni; networking for business opportunities and linkages; and access to venture capital. Me Mamahase the teacher that introduced Charles to YES developed a passion for entrepreneurship education, as she saw what a difference it made to so many lives. After her first year as YES Advisor in 2004, she continued to attend EWETs facilitator development workshop, received training in Simama Ranta and developed her expertise and competence in Local Partnership formation and functioning. All her dedication and achievements as a volunteer led to her being contracted by EWET to provide institutional support to YES in Quntu and surrounding area, on a part-time basis. Her participation within the EWET Associate development program, enables EWET to respond to further requests for YES from this area to be serviced by Me Mamahase for which she teams-up with another local EWET Associate. Me Mamahase together with other dedicated entrepreneurship education teachers are working towards the standardization of

their development and to professionalize the delivery of entrepreneurship education at secondary school level by teachers. A further development that all stakeholders of YES is looking forward to, is a scientific study as part of a doctoral thesis that will test the impact of YES on learners during 2011. The publication of findings in relevant scientific publications will see the efforts around YES contribute to the local and international knowledge base and discussions around entrepreneurship education at school level.