Sparking entrepreneurial tendencies in youth: Lessons from sport and life skills education in three African cities

Abstract


 
 
 This practice-based article describes a program that aims to instil an interest in entrepreneurship among African youth by helping them make a connection between the skills they have developed through their participation in sport and the skills required of successful entrepreneurs. The program was developed in partnership between scholars at four universities (University of Botswana, University of Dar es Salaam, University of Ghana and Michigan State University), as well as schools at other community organisations in three African cities: Gaborone, Botswana; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; and Accra, Ghana. The program, which seeks to contribute to the well-established need for job creation in sub- Saharan Africa, integrated basic entrepreneurship and life-skills training activities into a sports camp for youth athletes. The program appears to have developed entrepreneurial tendencies among youth sport participants in these African cities, suggesting that job creation efforts could benefit from targeting youth sport participants and helping them to recognise the important skills they have developed through their participation in sport, and helping them to identify ways in which that skill development could positively impact their futures.
 
 

Promoting development of entrepreneurial skills of youth in Ghana through a structured sport intervention program

“…In this brief report, data from the five-dimension youth experience survey for sport (YES-S) was used to describe entrepreneurial skills, beliefs and attitude of youth and their parents who participated in a structured sports-based program in Ghana. Inspired by the two previously published papers by Malete et al (2022) and McCole et al (2022), this report further extends and validates the power of structured sport-based PYD curriculum to nurture entrepreneurial skills, beliefs and attitude in youth.…”

“…Collecting data from only 5 parents and 18 pupils is undoubtedly a major constraint. However, it is important to recast the intent of this report as a country-specific follow-on data emerging from three African country research published by Malete et al (2022) and McCole et al (2022).…”

“…More achievement has been shown, when the sports learning experience is structure (Malete et al, 2022). Also, incidental learning occurs when youth engage in organized sports participation without a structured intention to develop or promote entrepreneurial skills (McCole et al, 2022).…”

“…The cross-cutting nature of sports allows individual and organizations to use it as a platform to promote positive youth development (Camiré, 2012;Bruner et al, 2021;Malete et al, 2022;McCole et al, 2022) and to reduce the occurrence of aggression (Carraro et al, 2014). Positive youth development (PYD), an asset-based approach to youth development, has attracted McLaren et al, 2021;Zhu and Shek, 2021;Qi et al, 2022).…”

“…This has resulted in missed opportunities to tap into youth talent and youth propensity for innovation and entrepreneurship as part of the development strategy. Fortunately, this is gradually changing as in Africa the papers published by Malete et al (2022) and McCole et al (2022) have shown that youth development can take on a paradigm shift using structured sports learning resources.…”