Miss KanishkaStart-ups are attracting young Indians who want to develop new products and build businesses. More students are showing interest in entrepreneurship making it vital for colleges to offer support, guidance and/or financial aid.
It’s an encouraging sign that India’s college students have ambitions beyond a job; they want to build their own enterprises, come up with products and be their own bosses. However, while entrepreneurship is becoming a choice, some may wonder whether Indian colleges are truly prepared to support the entrepreneurial ambitions.
India’s new GUESSS India 2025 survey, conducted by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Mandi in collaboration with REVA University, sheds light on this issue. Based on a sampling of 25,783 students in over 1,200 higher educational institutions in 34 states and Union Territories, this report highlights the entrepreneurial aspirations of Indian students.
Though these are encouraging numbers, there is one major caveat, i.e. the way higher education in India has been geared towards preparing students for a career, rather than a business.
The Problem Is Not A Lack Of Ambition
For years now, higher educational institutions in the country have been focussing on preparing students to land a lucrative job in a leading multi-national company or a government organisation. These jobs have been seen as the most secure options for post-graduation. That is why, for years, students were counselled through their academics to prepare themselves for interviews and to only consider a job in a large company or the government as a viable career option
However, times are changing and so are student’s priorities. According to the survey, while the preference for starting one’s own business immediately after graduation increased, the inclination for taking up government jobs and choosing a major company reduced. This is not to say that students do not still have a desire for a stable and secure job, but many appear to be willing to explore a more unconventional path.
Aspirations like these mean that educational institutions should also review the kind of support they provide to students. Preparing students to look for jobs is no longer enough when many of them are ready to create jobs for others.
A Business Idea Is Not The Same As A Business
What the survey also highlights is that many students would like to become entrepreneurs but there is a huge gap between having the idea to start one’s own business and actually running it. This is evident in the fact that only 10% of Indian students were able to make their first-ever sale, as compared to 23% globally, while almost half the Indian students did not have any entrepreneurial role model other than their parents. This shows that colleges need to recognise this huge gap between wanting to become an entrepreneur and learning how to run a functioning enterprise and support the latter
Students do not merely require awareness campaigns, innovation cells or workshops on entrepreneurship to create enterprises – they need a supportive ecosystem of mentoring, funding and a network to rely on, so that their ideas are not confined just to an idea. A business model works only on paper. A student who makes their first-ever sale could have more learning than what they absorbed in the past year. There is no doubt that events like start-up festivals will help students explore their interest in entrepreneurship but unless institutions focus on providing tangible post-event support to students, these festivals will simply be a publicity stunt.
Colleges Must Do More Than Start-Up Events
Colleges across the country must re-evaluate their current efforts towards promoting entrepreneurship, based on the findings of the survey. Institutions need to go beyond offering an array of events and workshops to generate interest amongst students and actually focus on how they can help these students to concretise their ideas and move beyond making a business plan.
The question institutions should be asking themselves is whether they can identify students with interesting ideas and provide them with the ecosystem to develop a prototype, identify potential customers and learn through failure.
How many students are able to prototype their ideas or identify at least one customer? How many students can register their enterprise, make a sale or have a minimum viable product versus how many students can submit a business plan or participate in an event? These are harder metrics to measure, but if institutions want to be credible towards nurturing entrepreneurship they will recognise that these metrics are of greater value to their goals than counting the number of visitors drawn to their latest start-up festival.
The Opportunity Must Be Open To All
Entrepreneurship must not be the privilege of the already privileged. This is easier said than done but apparently, it stands as the need of the hour. There may be students from small towns who have brilliant ideas but no mentorship or funding network. There may be students from urban areas who are technically skilled in creating products but do not how to start a business, manage finances or network to sell it. And then there are students who do not have any entrepreneurial connections or knowledge but strongly desire to learn how to run a functioning enterprise.
Such concerns are flagged by this very survey on entrepreneurship. Colleges must ensure that regardless of gender, location or other circumstance, students have access to mentors, funding options and relevant training, such as incubation or partnerships. The GUESSS survey finds that despite high female entrepreneurial aspirations, Indian women continue to lag behind, both in terms of the intention to start a venture and actualisation of the same. Unless there are structural measures in place to identify and nurture entrepreneurial talent, the apparent willingness to consider entrepreneurship will stagnate, simply because the necessary steps to facilitate it are not taken.
Education Must Prepare Students To Create Opportunities
Many students do not have the resources, capability or know-how to start their own enterprises or even the inclination to do so. Some will choose to start a career as an employee and some will choose to continue studying even after graduation, rather than launch their own businesses.
Not every student wants to, or needs to, become an entrepreneur. There will always be a need for teachers, doctors, engineers, researchers, administrators, politicians, accountants and more, a wide array of fulfilling careers that contribute to meaningful work and livelihoods and these are just as valid as launching one’s own business.
Education will always play an important role in supporting students to become competent professionals in their chosen field. However, the results of the survey suggest that it is now time to create alternative support systems that enable those who aspire to become entrepreneurs to take their first step, backed by a viable ecosystem.
By focussing on events such as start-up festivals, colleges may satisfy their target audience of students who are entrepreneurial at heart but unless they are ready to invest time and effort in helping students develop ideas, mentor them and allow them to bring their visions to life, colleges will not nurture true entrepreneurs.
Note For Indian Colleges
India’s college students have shown that the desire to become entrepreneurs is already present. The next challenge is to build an education system that helps turn that desire into meaningful action.
A university will soon not be judged only by how many students it inspires to dream of starting a business, but by how many it helps take the first real step.
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