Today's competitive environment demands individuals with an extremely high level of capability and skills, and the ability to adapt to and thrive in an environment where only the fittest survive. However these skills are not easy to come by in the current local setting. It takes a greater degree of commitment and hard work by multiple parties to attain the skills and attitudes necessary for an individual to be a successful and enterprising employee or entrepreneur in the evolving and diverse Sri Lankan business world.

Enterprise Education (EE) has long been hailed as a meeting of both worlds; putting together academic excellence and entrepreneurial skills that enable youth to become more employable and most importantly, create their own employment - thus becoming self sufficient and contributing to the nation's economy by creating more jobs. Development and wealth creation are the two most important factors the current economic situation demands.

What better way to fulfill these two requisites than through the creation of a pool of individuals that are above and beyond average; individuals that are able to thrive on challenges, overcome obstacles and think out of the box, who will not only have the knowledge, but the practical experience to apply their knowledge in a corporate context?

Universities in Sri Lanka have long been attaining an academic standard equal to those of the best foreign universities; what was lacking was the practical experience necessary for university graduates to get a foot in the corporate world. This is where Enterprise Education comes in - instilling in young graduates and undergraduates the importance of innovation, flexibility and most importantly, entrepreneurship. Although many local universities are now making initiatives to incorporate EE into their programmes, the support of corporates is essential in sustaining the correct dispersion of the Enterprise Education model in our Universities.

Their role is not simply to provide funds for EE to be incorporated into a school's or university's curriculum, but offer additional support in the form of internships, venture capitalism, research and development, and other initiatives that will empower graduates with the knowledge and skills to power their own businesses and create employment for many others.

The current university situation settles around a dependence on the government to provide jobs and opportunities for growth, which has long been proven a difficult and unsatisfactory deadlock, as without enterprise and innovation, an academically advanced student will not be able to apply knowledge gained at university to a practical job situation.

Therefore universities must now move beyond communicating knowledge to also teaching skill and ability in enterprise. Corporates can assist in developing innovation and sustaining enterprise education by giving university students the opportunity to intern in their companies, learn their work ethic and culture, and experience first hand what the real working world is like.

Another step corporates can take to support enterprise education is to provide them the opportunity - both through financial backing as well as through possible outsourcing projects - to become entrepreneurs themselves, thereby offering them the prospect to create their own business and provide employment opportunities for others. Empowering entrepreneurship provides corporates the direct benefits of holding equity in future enterprises, and opportunity to utilize and commercialize academic knowledge.

With the right skills, a good student can become a great employee or visionary entrepreneur; contributing to the development of business scope and the economy, the success of their own enterprises and a new generation of individuals who are able to carry Sri Lanka into the future.
Source: The British Council, Sri Lanka.