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32 BizEd MAY | JUNE 2015 To provide the workers Africa needs, business schools also must work "on the ground" to seek socially driven solu- tions and address the real needs of local communities. They must reach students earlier to develop their entrepreneurial skills. They must provide more opportu- nities for students to learn to innovate. And they must foster in students the sense that successful businesses do more than make profits—they make a positive impact on communities. TEACH 'ENTREPRENEURING' If Africa cannot prosper based on external solutions, how can its business schools help generate the right solu- tions? Some critics have suggested that business schools are simply teaching students in Africa the wrong things. That point was central to EFMD's November 2014 conference in Dakar, Af- rica, where delegates explored the theme "Entrepreneurship and management education in Africa: Are we miseducat- ing our students?" Delegates agreed that business schools are introducing stu- dents to the idea of entrepreneurship far too late. We might be able to "teach en- trepreneurship," but it's harder to instill in students entrepreneurial attitudes and an inclination toward innovation. Ideally, students should be exposed to activities that encourage entrepre- neurship and innovation from their elementary school years on. By the time they reached business school, students then would be more inclined to start businesses and produce innovations. As business faculty, we could focus less on teaching entrepreneurship and more on nurturing entrepreneuring mindsets that can accept responsibility, take actions, develop projects, and innovate business models. To do this, faculty would show- case to students how entrepreneurial and innovative businesses contribute to a thriving economy. Luckily for us, there already is a lot of entrepreneurial energy in Africa. The Global Entrepreneurship Moni- torž(GEM), the world's largest longitudi- nal study of entrepreneurship, illustrates that the entrepreneurial landscape in sub-Saharan Africa is on the increase and African economies are booming. In its 2014 report, GEM finds that more than 70 percent of Africans between the ages of 18 to 64 view entrepreneurship as a "good career choice"—the high- est of any global region. More than 45 percent say they have "entrepreneurial intentions," compared to only about 12 percent in the E.U. and the U.S. And 26 percent are involved in early-stage entrepreneurial activity, compared to 13 CURRICULA FOR THE REAL WORLD If business schools are to "upskill" sucient numbers of workers to keep up with Africa's growing demand for talent, it stands to rea- son that they must improve access to their programs and reduce the cost of enrollment. In a promising trend, more business schools are o•ering online learning options and experimenting with more innovative and a•ordable ways of delivering education to more people. But improving access to education, on its own, will not e•ectively address Africa's talent crisis. Whether courses are delivered online or face-to-face, simply having students read the material in text- books or hear it in lectures is not enough. Business schools can go a long way toward "upskilling" students more e•ectively by designing programs that share several key characteristics: They embrace experiential learning. The best learning happens when students interact with peers in their classrooms, at their work- places, or during action learning projects. Students need to feel their learning experiences and see their skills improving, just as runners feel the burn in their muscles as they train and notice when they shave a few seconds from their times. They make it personal. Learning comes alive when its applica- tion has personal meaning for each student. Whether students are coaches, small business owners, bankers, or social entrepreneurs, schools need to o•er them opportunities to apply what they learn in contexts meaningful to them. They support "entrepreneuring." Entrepreneurship can be a one-o• activity, but entrepreneuring is a mindset that can drive how our students think and act. We must encourage this way of thinking by exposing students to social business innovations and o•ering them opportunities to manage community-based projects. Our students need to get out into real-world markets to experiment and make a bigger impact on the community during their programs, not just after they graduate. Of 1,344 global business leaders from 68 countries surveyed, feared that they would not find workers with the skills their operations need to expand in Africa. —PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS' JUNE 2014 GLOBAL CEO SURVEY