Entry barriers to entrepreneurship for the highly educated

The aim of this study was to establish entry barriers for the highly educated to early entrepreneurial activities and relevance of education system to entrepreneurial early start ups. Data were collected from a sample of graduates in Dar es Salaam and were analyzed by cross tabulation, frequency analysis, Chi-square tests and statistical charts. The study found that low ability to commitment barriers received the highest score meaning that a large proportion of highly educated are hesitant to commit to entrepreneurship activities. Social risks particularly lack of business ideas received the second highest score indicating that many graduates have difficulties in identifying business opportunities. The third highest response was on fear of losing property or initial capital committed to business. The overall responses show that most of graduates to not get essential knowledge and exposures to enable them manage financial and social risks. The study also found that the current education system lacks focus in developing entrepreneurship thinking and skills to graduates the reason why over two thirds of respondents want to confine themselves to employment or to what they studied. The study recommends a review of the current education system to address some of these barriers and also for individual to re-orient their focus and attitudes towards entrepreneurship. Future research should expand to include people from the other regions and to also find out how barriers would pattern with one’s occupational status.