Meet an Auspreneur (An Aussie Entrepreneur)

Australian school leavers today can expect to have 20+ jobs over their working life, many of which out of necessity or, what is the best opportunity at the time, will be contracting or freelancing.  This being the case, our education system needs a major reboot to teach students how to be more entrepreneurial.  In the context of Australia, we call this Auspreneurship.  Essentially it’s teaching teenagers the basics of being independent business people, entrepreneurs; Australian style.  Auspreneurship should be implemented into the secondary school syllabus and taught to students so that they are not totally dependant on the traditional system of ‘getting a job’.  Instead, they are instilled with the mindset of creating their own work.  This will involve teaching skills such as how to effectively marketing their services, setting customer expectations, understanding how to manage money and generally having the skills to run an enterprise which they have been instrumental in initiating.  

This requires a significant rethink of the education system in Australia.  A system which needs to understand that in our rapidly changing economic environment, teaching creativity is equally as important as teaching counting.  Students need to be able to think on their feet and to know how to act on an idea.  If we ignore this then it is nothing short of letting our kids down, sentencing them to a career where they are dependant on others for an income and where they may miss the opportunities a modern, growing and ever-changing Australian [and Global] economy has to offer.

*Auspreneur is used as a common law trade mark.