Entrepreneurial Education Initiatives

The Hon. T.T. NGO (14:33): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Science and Information Economy a question about education for potential young entrepreneurs in South Australia.

Leave granted.

The Hon. T.T. NGO: We rightly champion Australia's great innovators and businesspeople who have created many of our successful enterprises, sometimes virtually from scratch. While it is difficult to teach innovation per se, the rapid rate of technological change means that new products and ideas can emerge very quickly and start-up businesses must be suitably ready to scale up and adapt to changing circumstances. My question is: can the minister tell the house about education initiatives that could help our next generation of entrepreneurs?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills, Minister for Science and Information Economy, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Business Services and Consumers) (14:34): I thank the honourable member for his most important question. Mr Ian Chubb, Australia's Chief Scientist, in his September 2014 position paper called 'Science, technology, engineering and mathematics: Australia's future', recommended that governments promote an entrepreneurial culture by integrating innovation and entrepreneurship into mainstream school curricula.

Traditionally, the Australian school curriculum has not been all that strong in teaching entrepreneurship, but that could be about to change thanks to the state government-funded initiative entitled Venture Dorm for Teachers. The three-day workshop will be conducted in the April school holidays. It will explore how teachers can help students better grasp the concept of entrepreneurship.

Some 30 trainee primary and secondary school teachers will discuss how to generate start-ups and test their feasibility with potential customers, partners and competitors. Venture Dorm for Teachers will be delivered by the New Venture Institute of Flinders University and the Australian Science and Maths School in conjunction with the Department for Education and Child Development. The initiative builds upon a suite of other entrepreneurship initiatives targeted at university students and existing workers and businesses such as the MEGA program, the SA Youth Entrepreneurship Scheme and the Venture Catalyst program.

The recent South Start Entrepreneurship Conference on 4 and 5 February at the Adelaide Convention Centre, also funded in part by the state government, demonstrated that there is already a really healthy cohort of aspiring young entrepreneurs here in South Australia. Many of them certainly seized the opportunity to pitch their ideas to the 600-strong audience, which included a number of potential interstate and overseas investors. There is strong interest among Adelaide's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem, centred around such places as Majoran and other co-working spaces, in learning how to create viable business models that are scalable and repeatable in the rollercoaster world of new enterprise creation.

The Venture Dorm for Teachers initiative will ultimately help create the next generation of entrepreneurs who are no doubt already tinkering with possible phone apps and dreaming up products for the emerging 'Internet of things'. There has also been a very encouraging and high degree of interest from teachers in participating in those courses, with all places being filled very rapidly. There will be a follow-up workshop in June which will include training in integrating entrepreneurship teaching into curriculum.

The program has been designed to specifically help teachers so that they can apply the concepts into the classroom, whether it's in maths, science, IT or art. The unique experiences provided by Flinders University's New Venture Institute help develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills and, it's anticipated, will provide a solid foundation in developing the entrepreneurial spark.

The government is very focused on ensuring that there is a strong pathway between STEM education in schools, tertiary education and also the world of work and business. However, not all STEM jobs will be in large companies, governments or institutions. The self-starters, as demonstrated by the enthusiastic young presence at the South Start conference, will play a key role in the next generation of problem-solvers and innovators. While the Venture Dorm for Teachers initiative is still a pilot study at this stage, if we can foster an entrepreneurship mindset in our young people, we can provide them with some very powerful and useful skills for them to use into the future.