Filipino women students show a strong need for education in entrepreneurship, GE Money Bank concluded from a survey it conducted with four universities in Manila.

However, the bank’s Student Survey revealed a gap between the desire to put up a business and the knowledge and skill needed in order to accomplish this task.

The results of the survey conducted by GE Money Bank and Let’s Go Foundation in four women universities in Manila—Assumption College, St. Scholastica’s College, College of the Holy Spirit and Miriam College—showed that majority of Filipino women students, or 88 percent of them, intend to start their own business in the future.

Some 90 percent of the respondents answered they would like to learn more about entrepreneurship and how to start their own business.

However, limited knowledge, understanding and experience pose serious obstacles to this goal. It emerged from the survey that the students’ understanding of business seems to be limited to selling, which they experienced when they were growing up.

Around 78 percent of the students surveyed have not been exposed to formal business management or entrepreneurship courses.

“Clearly, this gap shows the strong need to educate students on entrepreneurship,” the survey concluded.

On the other hand, around 64 percent of the students prefer to be employed in a private corporation or a nonprofit organization after they graduate, while only 31.75 percent consider owning a business or self-employment. These results showed the continued focus of Filipino society on pursuing employment rather than creating it after college.

The survey further revealed that the students are mostly influenced by their families to start a business; teachers as a factor in this regard only garnered a response of 5. This showed that schools largely follow the path of developing employees rather than entrepreneurs.

Another insight that can be drawn from the survey is that teaching materials should not be limited to conventional or traditional methods in light of an increasingly more technological world. The survey recommended that schools adopt alternative methodologies such as simulations and online learning.

When asked about the different models of learning, only 28 percent of the respondents said they would like to learn through instruction such as lectures and case studies, while 50 percent said they would like to learn through online courses and computer games.

The survey was conducted as part of the Women Entrepreneurship (WE) program initiated by Let’s Go Foundation and GE Money Bank last year. The program aims to identify the interests and needs of the students as well as gain insights that can enhance the program. The WE program hopes to encourage school programs that will expose students to knowledge and skills that will allow them to pursue and develop their interest in starting a business.

A total of 126 students were surveyed for the study. Two-thirds of the total sample comprised mostly of first-year students taking up business courses, and the rest were made up of students taking up nonbusiness courses.

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