Today, the world is dramatically changing and the need to innovate, invent and address real-world challenges with their perfect solutions has the utmost importance. In many parts of the world, many attempts have been made to develop effective programs for a better entrepreneurial mindset of the students including European Unions (EU). A recent study conducted by an independent research group so-called the institute for the future (IFTF) anticipated that 85% of the jobs that will exist in 2030 have not been invented yet. Therefore, no one can predict the kind of skills and trainings that will be needed in the coming decades but in fact the world remains to require innovators and inventors people. This means that in the future, jobs will be depending on short term meetings, project-based activities and contracts, too.

Looking at the world through the eyes of opportunities, entrepreneurship became a tool or an approach to finding solutions to key issues. It has been considered as one of the most important tools of success in all areas of life because it helps people to present real-world challenges and it’s a pathway to finding solutions to create new things or add value to the existed ones. The tertiary institutions have produced a lot of graduates and are mostly left unemployed in the markets. This has become a national problem to all over the world. Hence, the world has widely accepted the importance of entrepreneurial mindset and entrepreneurship education as one of the generic skills to be taught in schools and continuing throughout the life.

In Somalia, thousands of students graduate from colleges and universities each year without getting or having an employment market. Like this case and current circumstances, one of the possible options left for them is to become entrepreneurs. Becoming an entrepreneur involves education process as they come up with business ideas that ultimately contributes to the social and results in economic growth for the nationwide. Some believe that entrepreneurship is a special gift offered to special individuals only while some others believe that entrepreneurial skills can be either developed or born. Thousands of Somali young graduates believe in jobs being their first choice rather than to start their own business and become their own boss. Like our brains, our muscles increases and shrinks, too. Likewise, strengthening our brains, developing a successful and effective entrepreneurial mindset is an iterative process that requires patience, time, practice and repetition.

Early Entrepreneurial Education

Preparing students for the future require effective curriculum with real-world learning, project-based learning and highly involved teaching approaches. It requires launching effective educational programs and a shift from teaching what exactly entrepreneurs are to creating conditions to experience failure and other things that entrepreneurs attribute. Throughout this early entrepreneurial education process, it goes without saying that all students need one thing: skill development.

Creativity, complex problem solving, critical thinking will be top skills in 2020 and beyond. Today’s employers are looking for the people who have the capability of identifying, recognizing and prospecting new opportunities. Teaching and supporting this mindset from early age will then logically lead to a higher level of entrepreneurial mindset. This will then lead us to this question:

Does Early Entrepreneurial Education Develop Entrepreneurial Mindset?

The entrepreneurship itself is a work in progress and evolving concept. It is a way to presenting real-world challenges, issues and finding a better solution for it that adds value to the long process ahead. The heart of an entrepreneurship is imagination and creativity, too. Entrepreneurs create something new to the society that actually meets their needs. Moreover, a real personal experience from me is that I fully agree that early entrepreneurial education increases the entrepreneurial mindset of the Somali young graduates. For me, I have recently graduated from SIMAD University with Bachelor of Science in Accounting.

Additionally, yes early entrepreneurial education increases entrepreneurial mindset. In her book “Mindset: the new psychology of success Dr. Carol Dweck theorized people into having two mindsets: a fixed mindset and a growing mindset. Students with fixed mindset believe and think that they are dumb or smart in certain subjects such as sports, music or math and there is no way to change this at all while the students with the growing mindset think that they can build their skills with work and efforts. In this regard, entrepreneurial education in the early stages will more effective than any other stage. You can also try this website for more about entrepreneurial mindset

Conclusion Remarks

The unemployment rates of Somali young graduates are increasing gradually every year and they are left in the markets with no jobs available for them. Many students believe that even it is very difficult at this time to land at the existing job opportunities in the markets because of the vast tribalism, unclear recruitment process and the personal rather than general interest of some of business owners in the country. In Somalia, except some students who are in the field of business studies and related courses, there is no better awareness of entrepreneurial mindset of the most students in most universities in the city and across the regions.

Getting a long lasting solution to this issue has its peak importance. In this favor, entrepreneurial education is one of the factors to increase the student’s mindsets which will finally lead them to self-employed students. Like babies form in the mom’s stomach and then comes out after months, entrepreneurial mindset is like pregnant it should be formed in the minds of the student before they graduate from colleges and universities.

Recommendations

Due to the significant role of entrepreneurial mindset for the students, this article highly presents the following key ideas as recommendations:

• To revise and review the curriculum and the delivery content of the universities and include entrepreneurship modules to all faculties as to increase the awareness of the students in general
• To launch programs about entrepreneurship to effectively train students and equip them with an entrepreneurial mindset
• To build strong foundation of universities with capability of serving people with quality education through cooperation and network between them. 
• To shift from theory-based teaching methods to project and practically based teaching methods to help students innovate through practicing
• To develop a field of study programs that help students to observe how things going in different fields of businesses.
• To establish real-world learning classes that allow students to create business plans, design products or services, market and showcase their achievements and sell the products or whatsoever they have prototyped.
• To establish powerful events like (young entrepreneurs show) that will encourage many talented students to join the show and come up with beautiful and unseen ideas. Moreover, this will at least force the rest students to think about something.