Most young Africans believe they have the capacity to start a business and that there are good business opportunities. Moreover, research has shown that young Africans who are confident that they possess the skills to start a business are four to six times more likely to be involved in entrepreneurial activity. However, while confirming the high score on Opportunity Perception, the 2018 Global Entrepreneurship Index shows that the Continent’s entrepreneurial ecosystems score to be lowest in the areas.

While this is partly due to the lack of formal employment opportunities in the labour market, it also suggests that Africa’s education systems are not sufficiently preparing young people for the world of work.

As acknowledged in the 2018 Africa Talks Jobs Forum, African governments have an important role to play here as the public education system remains the first and foremost avenue for reaching African youth. Education across all levels, therefore, needs to be more related to job market needs and be designed so as to better prepare youth to start and run their own enterprises (AU Study on YEP, 2019) of start-up skills, risk acceptance and risk capital (GEDI, 2018).

According to the ILO (2015), the youth unemployment rate increases consistently with the level of education; youth who have completed tertiary education are two to three times more likely to be unemployed than youth with primary education or less (ILO, 2015).

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