The

ole of Higher Education Institutions to Promote Youthpreneur

Prihatin Lumbanraja

, Arlina Nurbaity Lubis

and Beby Kendida Hasibuan

Faculty of Economic and Business, Universitas Sumatera Utara, Medan, Indonesia

Keywords: Youthpreneur, Education, Faculty, University.

Abstract: Indonesia's graduated unemployment rate increased since 2013. Each year higher education graduated many

more students that seek for a job. The job itself become more scare as we approach the industry 4.0. The

most feasible solution is to shift the paradigm of job seeker to job creator. This paper aimed to evaluate the

implementation of strategies and program suggested by Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher

Education to encourage students' entrepreneurial ability which is the source of youthpreneur. The result

indicated that even though most of the students still prefer to graduate as job seeker, they paradigm

successfully started to shift toward job creator. The key of this result is the interrelationship between higher

education, lecturer, and the students.

1 INTRODUCTION

Higher education has important role to shape young

generation by providing the education to the young

generation. We can say that higher education

become a hub of young generation to adult society

(Raval, 2006). Higher educational institution

become a good place to deliver both to train and

create opportunities to their students as professional

or encourage them to pursue enterpreneurship as a

career path. (Badal and Srinivasan, 2011) stated that

people's entrepreneurial intention will be

dimisnished as they age. To support this statement,

(Gallup, 2013) provided a GALLUP-HOPE Index

which emphasized that entrepeneurial spirit should

be nurtured and litted earlier so they are ready to

start business or invent things that changes the

world.

Career path for graduated students is always a

job-seeker or job-creator. The first path led to a

professional that worked and contribute growth for

society. The later path led to an entrepreneur that

ready to start business and create more job for

society. (Bustamam and Halit, 2016) stated that

there was a mismathc in the supply and demand of

graduates. Employers argued that the current

graduates lack experience, knowledge, skills, even

attitudes. The gap will create more and more

unemployment (Siahaan, 2014). The gap also will be

wider in the future as we undergo the next industrial

revolution, industry 4.0, that required even more

skills and become more efficient than a machine

does. On one side, we can enhance the students

skills and capabilities by transferring the skills and

knowledge to satisfy market. In fact it is one of

feasible solution to close the gap. However, we on

higher education institutions can also lit the resilence

and enterpeneurial spirit within students to create a

new opportunities, not only for themselves but also

for the others. It is important to create a paradigm of

job creator rather than a job seeker to our students.

The level of higher education graduates

unemployment rate was increased from 2013 to

2015 based on Indonesiaon National Statistics

Bureau (BPS, 2017). The number of unemployed

higher education graduates rised fom 434k (2013) to

653k (2015). This value confirmed that even wider

supply and demand gap will be created in the future.

The unemployment rate significantly improved,

especially from graduated students as they lack the

required skills and experience for most of available

jobs. Without governement’s intervention, this

condition will lead to a cheaper wage for the

workers. Unsatisfied with the given wage, they

might quit the job that will create an endless rotation

of unemployement.

Industry 4.0 demanded a higher skill for human

resources. Robot and cloud computing might replace

human resources in near future (Crnjac, 2017). As

result, job opportunities will become even more

limited to people with less skilled. This phenomenon

created an urgency to stimulate entrepeneurship as it

will create more job opportunities.

In order to stimulate entrepeneurship on young

generation, Indonesian government published

1380

Lumbanraja, P., Lubis, A. and Hasibuan, B.

The Role of Higher Education Institutions to Promote Youthpreneur.

DOI: 10.5220/0010075413801385

In Proceedings of the International Conference of Science, Technology, Engineering, Environmental and Ramiﬁcation Researches (ICOSTEERR 2018) - Research in Industry 4.0, pages

1380-1385

ISBN: 978-989-758-449-7

Peraturan Presiden Republik Indonesia No 27/2013

which regulated about Business Incubator.

Entrepeneurship is required to develop Indonesia's

competitiveness. We need as many as a strong,

creative, and professional. It is aimed to develop

entrepeneurial society in Indonesia which high

spirited, competitive, smart, sociable, and virtuous.

It is everyone’s job to stimulate entrepeneurship; not

only government, but also the role of hihger

education institutuions and the young generation

(Ministry of Cooperation and Small Medium

Enterprises, 2017).

Indonesian Ministry of Reseach, Technology and

Higher Education (Ristekdikti, 2010) has

encouraged higher education to implement the

cucciculum to stimulate young entrepeneurship.

Ristekdikti intended to create ‘entrepreneurial

campus’ to stimulate the birth of young entrepreneur

in the future. As for today, many of higher education

set a motion in this plan, revised the entrepeneur-

imbued curriculum and support many of student-

entrepeneurial program.

This paper aimed to evalaute the role of

Universitas Sumatera Utara, as one of higher

education institutions in North Sumatera, to

stimulate the birth of young entrepreneurship by

implementing the programs and strategies suggested

by Ristekdikti.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Youthpreneur and

Entrepeneurship

There is a lot of definition of entrepeneurship on

research literature. Hunger and Wheelen (2014)

explained that entrepreneurship in a nut shell is refer

to the ability to think creatively and act innovatively

which will be the foundation, resources, motvation,

strategy, and a manner to face one's challenge. A

more concrete definition of entrepreneurship was

elaborated by (Scarborough and Cornwall, 2015)

which stated that entrepreneurship is how people

create business, they will directly face on risk. They

will be able to identified the goals and cultivate the

resources to achieve the goals. Entrepeneurship is

related to create a new business.

Entrepreneurship is also refer to the soul, spirit,

attitude, behavior, and one's ability to handle

business or the activities that leads to exploiting,

creating, or applying creative ways to the work, the

technology and the products by improving efficiency

in order to Maximize the profit (Subijanto, 2012).

Entrepreneurship in this case is a creativity and

innovation that someone has to generate added value

for himself and beneficial to others. In essence,

entrepreneurship is characteristic of someone who

has the iron-will and ability to actualize the ideas

into the real deal (business) creatively and

productively. A person with a high entrepreneurial

spirit should be able to see and assess business

opportunities, gather the resources needed to take

appropriate action and take advantage of business

opportunities.

(Robbins and Coutler, 2012) argued that

entrepreneurship is a process in which an individual

or group of individuals used an organized effort to

seek opportunities, create value, fulfill the desires

and needs through innovation and uniqueness with

the current resources that they are currently had.

This provides an indication that entrepreneurship is

essentially related to three elements, namely

creativity, innovation, and productivity.

The issue of employement and business potential

in the future have pushed Ristekditi to focus on

nurturing the entrepreneurship among students.

Entrepreneurship is derived as a course in higher

education and a skill that refers to the standard of

competence (Ristekdikti, 2010). Ristekdikti since

2009 has also implemented various higher education

programs which aimed at developing students'

entrepreneurial spirit. It is targeted to give a birth to

competent and capable entrepreneur among students

and graduates. In other words, young entrepreneurs

are born from their educational programs as they

studied in higher education. In short, this young

entrepreneurs are known as 'youthpreneur'.

(Siswoyo, 2009) developed the 'Entrepreneurial

Student Program' model which aimed to create more

young entrepreneurs, the youthpreneurs. This model

explained how college programs are prepared and

provided to students in an effort to build

entrepreneurial spirit within each individual.

2.2 The Importance of

Youthpreneurship

Major role of entrepreneurship in graduated students

as self-employing career is to close the gap while

promoting employment. Youthpreneurship shifted

the paradigm of job seeker to job creator. A job

creator will provide even more job opportunities to

others. Youthpreneur may become the key to

improve employment rate while absorbing job

seeker.

2.3 Higher Education on Developing

Youthpreneurship

The world has already seen that entrepeneurship

played an important role to economic development.

The Role of Higher Education Institutions to Promote Youthpreneur

1381

It has become one of their agenda to create a

sustainable growth in near future (Gwija, 2014),

(Keat, 2011), (Henderson and Robertson, 2000),

(Lüthje and Franke, 2003). Entrepreneurship can be

studied and can be transferred to the students

through formal or informal means (Tamizharasi and

Pachanathamac, 2010). Recent studies showed that

entrepeneurial training is the most effective way to

improve youth's entrepreneurial attitude and spirit

(Wang and Wong, 2004), it will also stimulate their

willingness to take entrepreneurial path after

graduate (Sánchez, 2011).

Students may learn the path to entrepeneurial as they

studied in higher education instituitions. Ristekdikti

suggested that entrepreneurship should not only

teached in a course called 'entrepreneurship' but also

any other courses that can relate to the

entrepreneurship. For example as they studied

marketing or international marketing, they also

learned the practice of marketing while starting a

new busines. Previous study conclude that

entrepreneurship course (education) and incubation

are the key factor to stimulate a new business in the

future (Mahadea, 2011).

3 RESEARCH METHOD

3.1 Research Time

The study was conducted in Universitas Sumatera

Utara up to June 2018.

3.2 Participant

The subject of our study is Universitas Sumatera

Utara, especially Faculty of Economic and Business

while implementing the strategies and programs

suggested by Ristekdikti to improve youthpreneurs.

A number of 30 lecturer and students also

participated in this study to confirm the effectiveness

of the current practices both from students and other

lecturers perspectives.

3.3 Data Collection Procedures

We employed a qualitative research toward the

curriculum and other lecturing activities. In order to

evaluate the current practices, we evaluate the

faculty’s curriculum and program to stimulate the

students’ entrepeneurship capabilities. To confirm

the result, we interviewed both students and

lecturers.

3.4 Research Model

We proposed the three-way model that explained the

relationship between university, lecturer, and

students to stimulate their entrepreneurial spirits.

The model also explained each role to achieve our

objectives.

Figure 1. Research Model

Figure 1 showed that the role of higher education

institution (USU) to stimulate youthpreneur is to

support and facilitate both lecturers and the students.

USU must the curriculum and program that spark

entrepreneurship soul within the students. The model

also suggested that it will be effective if the lecturers

also worked together to plant and nurture the

entrepreneurship to their students. As result, the most

desirable outcome is the students choose the

entrepeneurship career path as they graduate from

USU.

4 DISCUSSION

4.1 Entrepreneurship Educational

Program

Since 2009 Ristekdikti has already been preparing

mainly four programs to support the entrepeneurship

educational program. The programs were available

to put up the practice of educating entrepeneurship

effectively to the students.

4.1.1 Studentpreneur Program (PMW)

The program suggested that entrepreneurship

practices should be integrated within the curriculum.

The integrated program provide a simultaneus

learning process both the knowledge and experience

toward entrepeneurial. Faculty of Economic and

Business USU (FEB-USU) implemented this

program in its curriculum. However, the practice

was not forced to each lecturer or students. FEB-

USU encouraged the lecturer to implement this

program. Our research showed that even though it is

actively implemented, only a small number of

ICOSTEERR 2018 - International Conference of Science, Technology, Engineering, Environmental and Ramiﬁcation Researches

1382

lecturer (16%) participated in this program. They are

not forced the students to experience the

entrepreneurial while studying. However, on a

certain class they were given both practice and

knowledge about entrepreneurship. Overall, this

program is implemented by FEB USU

4.1.2 Entrepreneurship Course Program

(KWU)

FEB-USU implemented the entrepreneurship as one

of its compulsary course. In addition to the course,

FEB-USU also provide a seminar of

entrepreneurship class regularly to support the

entrepreneurship course program. It is confirmed

both from the students and lecturers that FEB-USU

actively implemented this program. Most lecturers

(92%) also support the entrepreneurship course

while teaching other classes.

4.1.3 Entrepreneurial Interenship Program

(MKU)

FEB-USU asked their students to undergo

interenship program for a certain period of time.

However, it is not limited to the SMEs. Most of the

students also prefer to intern on a large corporation

which less likely helped them or teach them about

entrepreneurship. The lecturers also confirmed that

almost none of the students chose to intern under

SMEs (3%). The implementation of this program is

still lack of practices.

4.1.4 Incubator Business Program

(INWUB)

FEB-USU acted as business incubator that help

students or alumni to develop and materializing their

business idea. USU facilitated the students and

alumni; even public to submit their business idea to

CIKAL which helped them to prepare and realize

their business idea. The lecturers confirmed that

CIKAL helped a lot of youthpreneur to develop and

finalize their business idea. However, the students

acually paid less attention toward business incubator

as it is not compulsary to support themselves. It is

become a bigger challenge to stimulate their

entrepreneurship rather than to help them

materializing the idea itself.

4.2 Strategies to Nurture Students’

Entrepreneurship

As the model stated, there should be an harmony

relationship between university, lecturers, and

students to effectively stimulate youthpreneurship

within graduates. Kuswara (2012) suggest seven

general strategies to achive our objectives. We will

discuss the FEB-USU’s implementation for each

strategy.

4.2.1 Curriculum Development

A strategies to adapt the change and adjust the

practices to create the most effective method to

deliver entrepreneurship toward the students. FEB-

USU regularly asked the lecturers to inject

entrepeneurial aspects within the courses. This

strategy has been implemented in FEB-USU. The

lecturers always insert or inject entrepeneurship

materials while teaching the students. However, it is

not necessarily effective as the students felt that they

did received the materials but they could not

understand the content. This mismatch in the

students part explained that the strategies need a

room for improvement to be effectively delivered.

4.2.2 Improving the Lecturers’

Entrepreneurial Capabilities

This strategy suggested that FEB-USU train the

lecturer to be more compatible to teach

entrepreneurial aspect of each courses. A lecturer is

not always understood the core of entrepreneurial. It

will be hard to teach the students as they (lecturers)

also do not mastering entrepeneurship themselves.

Thus, it is important to feed them with

entrepreneurial capabilities, at least the glimps of it.

Most of the lecturers in FEB-USU believed that

Faculty has been giving enough seminar and training

to them. However there is a small portion of the

lecturer that need more and specialized issue

regarding entrepreneurship. They believed that the

audience for these seminars is actually the students,

not themselves.

4.2.3 Entrepreneurship Centers

It is important to the faculty to provide

entrepreneurship centers for the students. It is more

likely a small version of business incubator that

operate within students under a lectuers’

supervesion. FEB-USU used to have an active

entrepreneurship centers. Today, it is less likely

active; however the associate member actively

The Role of Higher Education Institutions to Promote Youthpreneur

1383

shared their experiences outside the students

entrepreneurship center.

4.2.4 Cooperation with SMEs

The main purpose of this strategies is to create an

easy access for the students to learn directly from

SMEs. It is also important access to let the students

internship program that focused on SMEs. FEB-

USU openly accept cooperation with the SMEs as

one of institutional users. The SMEs benefitted from

consultation while FEB can create the access and

recommendation for the students to learn

entrepreneurship from SMEs. Unfortunately, it is

less likely to happen. The students believed that they

must intern in a bigger, large companies to learn. In

fact, they can also learn a lot from SMEs. The

consequences of letting the students choosing their

internship partner is a drawback to entrepreneurship

itself.

4.2.5 Students’ Business Unit

This startegy adapted the management of micro

business on the students’ hand. The simpler example

of this strategy is to let the students managing a mini

banking, mini offices, also a mini business unit. FEB

USU had the mini banking and offices to help

learning from other subject. However there is no

mini business unit that managed by the students

which can generate profit. It is actually helped the

student to manage small business.

4.2.6 Cooperation with Financial Institution

The main purpose of this strategy is to maintain a

mutual relationship between students and the

financial institution. The financial institution can be

benefited to employ the students as an internship

emploees while the students can learned from their

intership. It is also provide a capital assistance to the

students for business start up as the financial

institution evaluate it as feasible business. The

students, however, take a step back from starting

business.

4.2.7 Entrepreneurship Awards

FEB-USU periodically held the event to stimulate

entrepeneurship within the students. It is commonly

implemented as business plan competition or

business expo. Business expo actually the most

attracting strategies to stimulate entrepreneurship

among the students. They allow themselves to start

one to three days business during the event by

opening a stand. Some of the students actually

started the business the next day following up their

success in business expo. “Nasi Kampus” is one of

the successful entrepreneurship building based on

this strategy.

4.3 Students’ Orientation on

Graduation

We asked 30 students for their future orientation.

The result showed that 70% of the students prefered

to worked as employess. The mindset of job seeker

remain the same. Nobody said that it was easy to

transform people’s mindset. In fact, 30% of the

students willingly to open a business has already

indicated a great leap to support the economic

growth. Raval (2016) also indicated that most of

students accustomed to be a job seeker. It is not easy

but higher eduaction play the important role to

improve the situation.

5 CONCLUSION

Faculty of economic and business USU

implemented most of the suggested program and

strategies. FEB USU also used a holistic apporach to

stimulate students’ entrepreneurial spirit. While it is

remain true that many of the students still had a job

seeker mindset, several of the students having their

paradigm changed. They started to believe that it is

easier to create your own opportunities than looking

for the given opportunities. The interrelation

between university (faculty), lecturer, and students

played a major role to build their entrepreneurial

spirit.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors gratefully acknowledge that the present

research is supported Universitas Sumatera Utara.

The support is under the research grant Basic

Research of TALENTA 2018 Contract Number

108/UN5.2.3.1/PPM/KP-TALENTA USU/2018.

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