Sparking entrepreneurial tendencies in youth: Lessons from sport and life skills education in three African cities
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
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.
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who submit articles to this journal from 31st March 2014 for publication, agree to the following terms:
a) Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share and adapt the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
b) Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
c) Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Open Access Citation Advantage Service). Where authors include such a work in an institutional repository or on their website (ie. a copy of a work which has been published in a UTS ePRESS journal, or a pre-print or post-print version of that work), we request that they include a statement that acknowledges the UTS ePRESS publication including the name of the journal, the volume number and a web-link to the journal item.
d) Authors should be aware that the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) License permits readers to share (copy and redistribute the work in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the work) for any purpose, even commercially, provided they also give appropriate credit to the work, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. They may do these things in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests you or your publisher endorses their use.
For Volume 6 (2013) and before, the following copyright applied:
Articles published by UTSePress are protected by copyright which is retained by the authors who assert their moral rights. Authors control translation and reproduction rights to their works published by UTSePress. UTSePress publications are copyright and all rights are reserved worldwide. Downloads of specific portions of them are permitted for personal use only, not for commercial use or resale. Permissions to reprint or use any materials should be directed to UTSePress.
References
Canning, D., Raja, S and Yazbeck, A.S. (2015). Africa’s demographic transition: Dividend or disaster? Washington DC, USA: The World Bank.
Caird, S. (1990). What does it mean to be enterprising? British Journal of Management, 1(3), pp.137–145. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8551.1990.tb00002.x.
Caird S. (2013). General Measure of Enterprising Tendency v2 - GET2. [online] Available at: http://www.get2test.net.
Deci, E.L. and Ryan, R.M. (2008). Self-determination theory: A macrotheory of human motivation, development, and health. Canadian Psychology, 49(3), pp.182–185. doi:10.1037/a0012801.
DSW (2014). Manual Entrepreneurship Development Training. [online] Available at: https://pdflife.one/download/4657689-manual-entrepreneurship-development-training-dsw [Accessed 14 April 2022]
Gould, D. and Carson, S. (2008). Life skills development through sport: current status and future directions. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 1(1), pp.58–78. doi:10.1080/17509840701834573.
Gould, D., Collins, K., Lauer, L. and Chung, Y. (2007). Coaching life skills through football: A study of award winning high school coaches. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 19(1), pp.16–37. doi:10.1080/10413200601113786.
Holt, N.L. (2016). Introduction: positive youth development through sport. In: N.L. Holt, ed., Positive Youth Development through Sport: second edition. New York: Routledge, pp.1–5.
Kirby, D.A. (2004). Entrepreneurship education: can business schools meet the challenge? Education + Training, 46(8/9), pp.510–519. doi:10.1108/00400910410569632.
Lin, J.F. (2012). Youth bulge: Demographic dividend, time bomb, and other futures. Journal of Futures Studies, 21(2), pp.21-34. doi:10.6531/JFS.2016.21(2).A21
Malete, L., McCole, D., Tshube, T., Mphela, T., Maro, C., Adamba, C., Machuve, J. and Ocansey, R. (2022). Effects of a sport-based positive youth development program on youth life skills and entrepreneurial mindsets. PLOS ONE, 17(2), p.e0261809. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0261809.
Morselli, D. (2018). Teaching a sense of initiative and entrepreneurship with constructive alignment in tertiary non-business contexts. Education + Training, 60(2), pp.122–138. doi:10.1108/et-06-2017-0093.
Mueller, V., Schmidt, E., Lozano, N. and Murray, S. (2018). Implications of Migration on Employment and Occupational Transitions in Tanzania. International Regional Science Review, 42(2), pp.181–206. doi:10.1177/0160017617751029.
Resnick, D. and Thurlow, J. (2016). African youth and the persistence of marginalization: employment, politics, and prospects for change. London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.
Ryan, R.M. and Deci, E.L. (2000). Self-determination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic motivation, Social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), pp.68–78. doi:10.1037//0003-066x.55.1.68.
UNDP (2015). Sustainable Development Goals. [online] Sustainable Development Goals. Available at: https://www.undp.org/sustainable-development-goals.