Research Journal of Recent Sciences _________________________________________________ ISSN 2277-2502 Vol. 3(6), 112-115, June (2014) Res.J.Recent Sci. International Science Congress Association 112 Review Paper Integrating Entrepreneurship into the Teaching of IT Abdul Basit Shaikh, Muhammad Sarim, Sheikh Kashif Raffat, Muhammad Siddiq, Adnan Nadeem and Kamran Ahsan Department of Computer Science, Federal Urdu University of Arts, Sciences and Technology, Karachi, PAKISTAN Available online at: www.isca.in, www.isca.me Received 28 th November 2013, revised 16 th April 2014, accepted 30 th May 2014 Abstract Teaching methods have been subject to increasing scrutiny over the past years, specially from the perspective measurable tangible outcomes. Whilst the focus has been on ensuring the students learn what is being taught, there has been a refocus on entrepreneurship education. This has been reinforced by the global economic turndown and the need to increase economic growth. Hence, traditional teaching methods can be redefined by inverting the paradigm. Instead of developing a course outline based on the discipline being taught, develop the course based on the required entrepreneurial activity, which can then be de-constructed to define the salient course outline. The purpose of this paper is to suggest great benefits in this process, with Pakistan being used as a specific example, the IT discipline as the subject and the freelancing market as the specific target. Keywords: Entrepreneurship, education, teaching pedagogy, IT, innovation, economic growth. Introduction The issues of innovation is now more closely linked to entrepreneurship then every before, driven primarily by the global economic recession. The inability of state driven bailout packages has resulted in the need to promote entrepreneurial activity, which in turn has put the spotlight on entrepreneurship education. Klaus Schawab 1 stated in the executive summary of the World Economic Forum (WEF) report that: Entrepreneurship and education are two such extraordinary opportunities that need to be leveraged and interconnected, if we are to develop the human capital required for building the societies of the future. Entrepreneurship is the engine fuelling innovation, employment generation and economic growth. The problem with entrepreneurship education is the term itself; for how do you teach a subject which itself is dependent on dynamic judgements based on time specific realities. Whilst this is difficult, some good original work has been undertaken, with 2 being one of the first in developing and offering a BA (Hons) in Entrepreneurship. Whilst this is possible in structured societies like the United Kingdom, this is more difficult in countries like Pakistan where political instabilities drive other instabilities. IT Entrepreneurship in Pakistan Recent articles have shown that despite all its problems, Pakistan has managed to play a substantial role in the software freelancing market 3,4 . The freelancing website, Freelancer.com reported that Pakistan had the third largest registered freelancers of the website, amounting to a significant 39%. Similarly odesk.com reported that of the 35 million hours of freelancing work, Pakistan contributed to 2.6 million hours, amounting to about 7.5%. Of the 4 million registered contractors, 2.14 million are from Pakistan. Yet a cursory look at the educational system of Pakistan suggests that this relatively high participation and contribution is not because of, but inspite of the educational structures. For such a large number of individuals to be registered and contributing to the freelancing market is an achievement of any educational system, let alone that from a developing country like Pakistan. First, this indicates the great potential that exists within the young population. Secondly, and more importantly, this suggests that these percentages can be increased significantly if the educational process was modified to support the students in developing and increasing their entrepreneurial potential. In addition, it does not require a major departure from the traditional curricula, just a change in perspective which in turn drives the curriculum. NGO’s are also play a vital role for development of science and entrepreneurship especially for women in rural areas 5 . Traditional Teaching Techniques The science of teaching has developed over years, and primarily it has a compartmentalised approach whereby the science/discipline is taught with its applications as part of the science. Hence languages, networks, multimedia sciences are taught as pure sciences and the students are left to apply them to practical issues, and to practical market requirements. Whilst the same problem exists in terms of the teaching of other sciences, the fact that IT trends change rapidly, it is very difficult to keep up with applications of these technologies when each year, the IT trends outpace the speed with which the curriculum is revised. Although the statistics showed that publication of research papers in Asian countries have exponentially grow in last five years 6 .