An investigation into youth entrepreneurship in selected South African secondary schools: An exploratory study

This research paper examines the status of entrepreneurship educationin selected South African secondary schools to determine the impactthereof on young learners’ attitude towards entrepreneurshipand their future plans. It highlights some challenges facing youthentrepreneurship development in Sedibeng secondary schools. Thestudy is based on the attitude approach to entrepreneurship researchand discusses the results of an empirical study involving 1 748 grade10 learners. South African youth appear to have a positive attitudetowards entrepreneurship and the existence of opportunities fornew venture creation, but seem to have inflated expectations withrespect to their future academic qualifications and less interestthan would be expected in starting their own businesses. Statisticalanalysis of the data revealed that entrepreneurship education in thesample schools was largely infrequent and without depth or focus.The results indicated that catalytic factors, such as exposure toentrepreneurship at school and having self-employed parents, havenot had any effect on learners in the sample, thus re-emphasisingthe urgent need for entrepreneurship training programmes of value.The paper concludes with recommendations for further research onentrepreneurship education in South African secondary schools