Tech Talk

Joel T. Fagsao

Can Entrepreneurship Be Taught?

During the launching of the John Gokongwei School of Management Student Enterprise
Center at the Ateneo de Manila University on February 16, 2007, JGSOM Dean Rodolfo P.
Ang opened the program by posing the question, “Can entrepreneurship be taught in
school?” to which the school’s answer is “Yes… and it is best learned when students
are given opportunities to put theories learned inside the classroom to actual
practice in real-life settings, under the guidance of teachers.” In the many articles
I’ve read online, Fortune magazine and other business sections of the major dailies, the
debate rages on –whether entrepreneurs are born and not made. On one side, supporters of
one theory believe that entrepreneurs are born to spot opportunities and one side says, we
can be taught the rudiments of getting into business in a formal setting- which is the school.
Those who say that entrepreneurs are born and not made, site the world’s richest man, Bill
Gates, founder of Microsoft Corporation as one example. Gates was a college dropout yet he
was able to amass great wealth through a software company he founded. The same is true
with Steve Jobs, a college dropout who eventually established a very popular company
called Apple, the maker of the insanely popular iPod. The school of hard knocks thus
becomes the highlight of those who believe that one is born an entrepreneur and only a very
few have that DNA in them. Of course, many within our community support the theory that
the knack for spotting opportunities and turning it into a source of income is the route taken
by our homegrown businessmen. A majority never even finished college. So why does the
debate continue until today? It is because people continue to believe so- that entrepreneurs
are a special kind of people.

On my part, I realize that enrolling in an Entrepreneurship course is the way to go. Times
have changed. If we look at the history of the Sys, Tans and other tycoons within our
country and our community, they were in the midst of a great opportunity. The playing field
was equal for everyone as one had to start from scratch after the devastation brought by
World War II. Most of the successful entrepreneurs of the past generations had the
opportunity to start an enterprise with a very few or no competitors at all. Success in
business in the past has often been a result of “being the early bird who gets the juiciest
worm.”

Today, we are in a different setting. Infrastructure supporting business has greatly

improved coupled with developments in communication technology. More jobs abroad have
also contributed to an increased buying power of a lot of Filipinos. This has made the retail
industry one of the biggest employers in the country because of the Filipino’s penchant for
shopping whether in the tyange or mall. Competition among businesses today is intense.
Many a business also folded up or go bankrupt in a shorter period of time. One example,
observe the restaurants that dot the Halsema Highway. As far as I can remember, there is
no restaurant that has stayed on through the years. Either the restaurants close down,
change ownership or be converted into another business. And if ever there are restaurants
in that area that have survived, you can literally count them with your fingers.

The Role of the Academe

In an article entitled Can Entrepreneurship Be Taught? Published in Fortune Magazine,
Joel Holland, 20, a sophomore at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass. a student of
Entrepreneurship believes that a lot of businesses have failed because of the lack of
business skills by the owners. Holland notes that only a very few have had the privilege to
have business mentors or coaches, to guide them in their ventures. Enrolling in an
Entrepreneurship program in colleges has become the equalizer. Your coach or business
mentor was your teacher and the school was your business venture laboratory. In the 70’s
and 80’s a majority of Filipino college students have enrolled in Businesses or the so called
“Commerce” courses. Alas, if you take a look at the curriculum, the focus was more on
turning commerce students as future employees in corporations, businesses or government
agencies. Only a very few percentage of the graduates have turned their training into
managing their own businesses.

In 2005 the course Bachelor of Science Entrepreneurship was highlighted in the Commission
on Higher Education’s order that the course be called BS Entrepreneurship. The CHED sites
in the guidelines that the “curriculum for the BS Entrepreneurship course covers a balanced
treatment of the functional areas included in planning, starting and operating a business.”
This time there is now a course wherein the main objective is for a majority of the graduate
of BS Entrepreneurship course should be ready to set up their own business ventures. The
CHED guidelines for the course has set the tone for schools offering the BS Entrepreneurship
program to network as much as possible with organizations, business groups and other
institutions to help provide a good training ground for students of the entrepreneurship
program.

In my visits to high schools in out province, I realized that setting up your own business
venture was not in any of the student’s mind as a career. A majority were focused on
getting into a college program where the end result is getting employment in an
organization or institution. Not a hand was raised when I asked “who would want to be
employers and not employees someday?”

If many students are not keen on looking at becoming entrepreneurs someday, then indeed
this becomes a sad day for Mountain Province. Negros rose from the menace of hunger and
desperation by turning to entrepreneurship ventures when the sugar industry was at its
worst times. By getting the sacadas (sugar cane workers) to get into livelihood activities,
Negros survived.

I remain undaunted when a lot of my adviser friends say that the BS Entrepreneurship
course we opened at Xijen College might not be feasible. I could just say, perhaps it is the
same cautionary statement I did hear when I started a computer training school in 1992. I
could only say that in time, the BS Entrepreneurship course at Xijen will help stoke the fire
for entrepreneurship in Mountain Province. There are still a lot of opportunities in Mountain
Province that can be turned into great business ventures. We only need to look around us.
The BS Entrepreneurship course could be start, and I am keeping my fingers crossed.