Call for entrepreneurship

Malta Enterprise is seeking partners to participate in the creation of an entrepreneurship network. Among the partners sought, the enterprise is looking for the co-operation of educationalists and student bodies. It is very important for the University to acknowledge the interest of Malta Enterprise and the recognition it is giving to the importance of education in the setting up of a national entrepreneurship network.

Students at the University need to be given the skills not only to use their knowledge base but also to become entrepreneurs. The successful implementation of entrepreneurship by fresh graduates depends significantly on the educational environment and attitudes impregnated during their student days.

The University may encourage its students, for example, by assigning student projects to explore areas of practical skills. In the words used by Malta Enterprise in its call for the formation of the entrepreneurship network, the support of the educationalists and of the student bodies is needed "to exploit all possible latent skills and resources there may exist for the development of new entrepreneurial attitudes to business".

An important aspect of education is hands-on training. Often, the University covers this need through the organisation of placements as an integral part of the curriculum. For example, the Faculty of Education uses teaching practice placements as a significant part of its training.

The next step which the Faculty needs to investigate is how to train its students in a practical way to become educators and possibly also good entrepreneurs, say, by developing private schools to attract foreign students, perhaps even establishing a private university with the assistance of Malta Enterprise.

Many teachers do take up private tuition which is a form of a small business enterprise. The University too set up a small business wing, Malta University Services (MUS). It has been successful in giving an example of possible development of entrepreneurship from an educational point of view.

So far, its success was mainly in the organisation of short courses. It is now joining forces with foreign universities in addition to its mother institution. This understanding certainly needs a good business mind and entrepreneurship.

The work resources committee too are becoming slightly less finicky and a bit more organised, setting the right framework to encourage staff to learn to manage the small sums allocated to them in a wise, cost-effective manner rather than in the usual bureaucratic civil service manner with detailed attention to rules and regulations (whether rational or not) and little attention to quality and cost savings. This may induce the academic staff to set the ball rolling to create an entrepreneurial atmosphere which hopefully will rub off on the students and on tomorrow's graduates.

The University must do more. It must start approaching the business community and entrepreneurs for possible joint ventures. The University may consider following other European universities in setting up high-tech parks such as a science and engineering park.

A suitable area for such a park would be close to the premises of the old Price Club, perhaps including the old Price Club premises themselves, a space which seems to be unused at this moment, and perhaps some area at the San Gwann Industrial Estate which is close to the University.

Another venture which is very often carried out by a university is the running of the teaching hospital on an entrepreneurial basis. This would probably kill two birds with one stone. A venture of the size of the Mater Dei Hospital should provide placements for all the University students involving all professionals as this project involves all kind of work ranging from management to engineering, to practically all health professions.

The Malta Enterprise call for an entrepreneurship network is timely indeed. It should certainly reach and be heard by the University authorities and the policymakers. However one does need to remember that a stumbling block which discourages new and young entrepreneurs in Malta is none other than MEPA's practices which provide all imaginable bureaucratic discouragement to development.

Malta Enterprise and the University should make arrangements with MEPA to show students how to overcome the hurdles which are placed in front of new potential entrepreneurs when they come to submit even the simplest of applications to MEPA. Otherwise all efforts will only reach the planning stages. MEPA has the unfortunate reputation of being very weak with big developers and powerful and unfriendly with the little ones.