Entrepreneurship in Kashmir is still encumbered by the conventional educational system as education is the main source for promoting entrepreneurship in the business sector of the economy, there is still a lack of specific curriculum on entrepreneurship development in the State education system. Due to the increasing demand of this sector, currently, the entrepreneurship education is a “new cup of tea” limited to graduates of business schools and management institutes, whereas for other streams of education like the sciences and arts there is not a single course on entrepreneurship in the curriculum. Due to this gap state’s entrepreneurial sector is still underdeveloped and struggling. Even business schools that have developed curriculum on entrepreneurship are lacking in terms of social entrepreneurship. This lack of social entrepreneurship knowledge presents a major challenge for social enterprises in finding competent and skilled promoters. Kashmir presents a huge potential of youth which can be utilized for development through the provision of real time knowledge and developing in them a perspective of entrepreneurship—creativity, innovation, initiative, uncertainty handling. However, the contents of entrepreneurial education are still alien to the current faculty and curricula of education system and are limited to one or two subjects in Business Administration degree programs. For the effective exploitation of human resource to seeking development, the focus of Management Education needs to be shifted to the creation and development of entrepreneurs from the mere creation of employees. For all this, I suggest entrepreneurial education to be incorporated as a single standing specialization in Management Education. This development will, in turn, give rise to firm-creators‘who will provide consistency and sustainability to the economic growth. We are optimistic that given the huge youth potential, entrepreneurship education can yield positive social and economic outcomes.
Still the contents of entrepreneurship are alien to our curricula and There is almost absence of any entrepreneurial education faculty. Higher Education Department of Kashmir must realized the significance of entrepreneurial education with the changing global economic trends and should started taking initiatives in this regard to promote innovation and entrepreneurship which involved modification of curricula, introduction of courses in innovation and entrepreneurship within university systems, establishment of technology parks and technology incubators and providing access to venture capital and soft loans to new start-up companies. The piece of writing attempted to explore the potential role that Entrepreneurship Education can play in the economic success of Kashmir. Strong potential association of such education is found to be with the growth indicators. The prospects of entrepreneurship education are higher and its pursuance has the potential to serve in the economic revitalization of the state. However, such education is almost non-existent in Kashmir. Yet, no specialization programs are offered in Entrepreneurship and a very limited number of universities offer some courses in their undergraduate and postgraduate degree programs of Business Administration. Consider this disappointing situation a high time for the Higher Education Department to show a serious concern towards the pursuance of Entrepreneurship Education. The issue of faculty and curricula development needs to be addressed with more consideration.
(The author is presently working on a project at Kashmir University on youth Entrepreneurship and Education in conflict Areas – A study of Higher Education. Views are his own [email protected])
