The two-day trip to Espoo is now complete. I took 5.42 morning train from Kuopio, because I finished work the previous evening at 10 pm, so the obvious result was tiredness. But I did contrubute and learn during the camp.
I think I expected more teaching from the experts, but it was us on the first day to present the pitches, and then the SWOT's. The best parts were the Work application game virtual version contest, as well as sharing the networks and our entrepreneurship experiences with the 1st-year business students. I have myself received 4-month training course on work application skills, marketing and productizing my experience, and I have applied for work and worked as a freelancer for the past 3 years, so I have accumulated experiences to share. About the game contest, it was awesome that our contributions were wanted and appreciated.
Few thoughts of critique towards the content, though. The 2-day session was about ideas how to teach vocational students entrepreneurship, and how it is taught elsewhere. Now, this is great, and the vocational students are an ideal target group. However, let's be realistic. Here are some hard facts.
1. Vocational students in arts (music, artisans etc). have difficulty of finding employment, whether in companies, orchestras, as musicians or as self-employed entrepreneurs. We will see what is the impact when 1,000 vocation teachers will lose their jobs, in this sector outside the capital area, and the jobs/study places will be transferred to nursing in the capital area. Are the students give a realistic idea and the hard facts of what entrepreneurship is?
2. A high percentage of new firms will not make a two-year mark, in other words most companies will never be successful. And just look at Kermansavi and other long-term Finnish companies now. Gone. In addition, during these crucial first years, most entrepreneurs will need to work long days from morning till evening, day in and day out.
3. A female entrepreneur's average income is under 2,000 euros per month. This was published recently in a women's magazine. One needs to realize that an entrepreneur must earn three times more than what will be left as the net income after taxes, social insurance expenses, rents, equipment, tools, materials, salaries to others, accountant, ad agency, running the web site, and other costs.
4. If you cannot find work in your own field or in any other field, which is the reality in Finland, the options after that are
a) to draw unemployment benefit, apply for work and wait
b) study and get more qualifications or a new profession
c) start writing a dissertation (which requires university degree and also funding, so not very likely for vocational students or graduates)
d) become an entrepreneur
Some people try entrepreneurship because there are no other options left. In one way or another I'm doing all the above now after having been a jobseeker since summer 2009. I think that a vocation education in a practical field is one of the best investments one can make, to secure employment. The companies have beautiful rhetoric in speeches and job announcement about valuing education, networking, linguistic skills, work experience, and other skills. This is all true in this sense: without the specific degree or education (such as a social worker, painter, can mechanic) you cannot get work, not matter how experienced or qualified you are. The vocational school still have a reasonable amount of funds for their teachers (the ones who are not being cut off), so there is a lot of hope in vocation education. About the entrepreneurship, I don't know.
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