Teaching Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Sculpture: The Way Forward

Abstract

Innovation and entrepreneurship is a significant factor of teaching peoples in sculpture fraternity to gain creativity by employing their hands and minds for economic well-being. These two contents have synergising across business and management disciplines but much have not been seen in art fields especially sculpture. Universities are increasingly being criticized for their failure in innovation and entrepreneurship education with their excessive focus on storytelling about entrepreneurs, business planning competitions and lean start up models. Stemming from many cases of leading entrepreneurs who were either university drop-outs or did not go to university at all, there is cynicism in the community about the effectiveness of universities in generating innovators. However, there are in fact successful approaches to developing creativity and innovation skills being used by universities such as work integrated learning (WIL). Research shows that this approach is beneficial to both students in developing their creativity and innovation skills, confidence, self-efficacy and leadership. This paper therefore examines and assesses the approach to teaching innovation and entrepreneurship in sculpture by how this practice can be taught to entrepreneurship sculpture students as it builds on these approaches, and tries to shed some additional light on the careers opportunities where students aspiring to become entrepreneurs can learn the ‘practice of innovation’ in such a way that they become ‘knowledge agents for innovation”. This study was based on descriptive research methodology to provide answers to the research questions. A simple random convenience sampling of art students especially in sculpture field was used. Primary data for analysis was obtained using self-written questionnaires and personal interviews. The findings are discussed and recommendations for future research and practices are also made.

Keywords: Teaching, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Sculpture, Creativity