Student entrepreneurship an inquiry into the challenges faced by University of KwaZulu-Natal graduates.

Abstract

The number of unemployed young university graduates in South Africa is annually on the rise. This is due to a combination of factors which include a lack of the right skills, work experience, type of qualification, low number of available jobs and other macro-economic factors. Different stakeholders have proposed entrepreneurship as a possible solution to graduate unemployment. This study explores the feasibility of entrepreneurship as a way out of unemployment for jobless graduates. It does this by investigating the perceptions of young graduates of the University of KwaZulu-Natal who are engaged in entrepreneurship in Pietermaritzburg. The qualitative method of interviews is used for data collection. Two major areas of investigation in this study are that of the challenges that graduates encounter in their various business ventures as well as their perceptions about the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education at university. Generally the findings of this study seem to suggest that entrepreneurship, if developed properly, could be one of the solutions to the challenge of graduate unemployment. However a number of factors determine successful entrepreneurship. These include personality traits, intelligence, access to finance, good business management skills, family background as well as the general economic environment. The findings could also generally suggest that, in its current form, entrepreneurship education is not effective enough in producing graduates who are successful in business.