Empowering pupils
“What do you want to be one day?” This question can be extremely overwhelming for many Matric students who haven’t quite figured out what they want to do when they leave high school.
JOBURG – According to Statistics South Africa’s quarterly labour force survey last year, the country had a record-high unemployment rate of 36.7 percent and six million unemployed graduates.
The survey suggested that the reality nowadays was that no one was guaranteed a job.
Entrepreneurial company Raizcorp believes this may be the reason most Grade 12 pupils are often overwhelmed and undecided about what they want to do when they leave high school.
In an effort to promote entrepreneurship as a career choice and get the youth excited about being entrepreneurs, Raizcorp has opened its own businesses, creating more jobs and building South Africa’s economy.
The company developed the BizCamp Programme to help equip young people with the knowledge and skills needed to become entrepreneurs.
The programme aims to acquaint high school students with the realities and opportunities of starting their own business, while also building an understanding of how entrepreneurial thinking can be applied to everyday life.
The Deutsche Internationale Schule Johannesburg was the first school to take part in the programme where 18 Grade 12 business studies pupils from the school were selected to join the programme.
Pupils were taught the fundamentals of business thinking, how to pitch ideas to potential investors, and what the critical success factors of a successful entrepreneur were.
