Too many incentives for start-ups

Failing tests is no big deal if you show the promise of a business wizard. This was a message recently sent by a vocational college vice dean.

According to Qianjiang Evening News, a student of this college, after flunking 7 courses, still graduated with honors, because he had made a fortune in business. The college set up the entrepreneurship school in 2008 to provide e-commerce training. Students can also apply for exemption from tests and classes on account of their business achievements.

Perhaps some might cite vocational school as an extenuating circumstance. But in recent years, entrepreneurship schools have sprung up in quite a few universities across the country, with many of them encouraging their aspiring students to chase their dreams by dangling incubators, start-up funds or research-business coalescing before their very eyes.

Problems are easy to foresee. It can lead students into thinking that entrepreneurship comes first. They may put study aside and hastily venture into the uncharted waters of business, even before they have any notion about what business is about. Innovation or creativity doesn’t come easily. It requires clairvoyance, business savvy born of experience, financial solidarity and social resources, which are naturally beyond most students. When even adults endowed with these advantages aren’t guaranteed success, inexperienced students may easily end up being deceived or sustaining a huge loss.