Entrepreneurship at the University of Zambia (UNZA) Factors that have influenced the current state of entrepreneurship activities at the University of Zambia

Abstract

Summary The factors that were used in examining what has influenced the current state of entrepreneurship at UNZA have been useful in giving insights on what is obtaining at the both the education and commercial level. From the study it has been established that although UNZA does not have a policy that addresses entrepreneurship at the institution, the concept was well understood and the respondents acknowledged that commercially UNZA needed to engage in more entrepreneurship activities as income generating ventures. UNZA also stated the need to equip UNZA students with entrepreneurship skills. The concept of entrepreneurship is interpreted as moving away from training graduates to have a mind-set of expecting to find jobs in the already established firms to training them to be more innovative and self-reliant. This is due to the challenges that university graduates face in finding employment opportunities on the already saturated job market. On the commercial aspect, entrepreneurship is interpreted as engaging in income-generating ventures to supplement on the cost of running the university. The study has also indicated that UNZA has introduced entrepreneurship courses in the schools of Humanities and Social Sciences, Veterinary Medicine and Agriculture while results from the School of Mines and Education indicated that there were no entrepreneurship courses. Although external donors may not be an important factor in establishing entrepreneurship activities in the Western universities, the factor on the role of external donors has helped in establishing that UNZA does require help from external donors in order to run entrepreneurship activities. The factor on contact with industry equally helped in establishing that creating links with industry is important. However, the study has also revealed that UNZA still needs to make more efforts towards establishing such links at both the commercial and educational aspects. The need for human resource has also emerged as an important factor not just in executing entrepreneurship activities at UNZA but in other aspects of the university as well. Challenges from both the education and commercial aspects include: Inadequate funding for entrepreneurship activities, long procedure in approving funds for projects, inadequate human resource and inability to link UNZA with industry. The impression of entrepreneurship education at UNZA is that it is well developing from what it was in the past few years. The study has shown that UNZA is making positive efforts of instilling students with entrepreneurship skills through offering entrepreneurship courses at various study levels. However, the courses are more theoretical than practical because of inadequate funds. What remains to be done is for the university to establish links with industry and make more efforts to engage donors in sponsoring entrepreneurship activities at UNZA. Establishing links with industry cannot only contribute positively towards instilling entrepreneurship skills in graduates but also help towards the improvement of commercial activities at UNZA.