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South African kids find their inner Donald Trump

By Abraham McLaughlin, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor / March 17, 2011

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA

Donald Trump is proud of his homeland and especially of a group of young students fighting poverty where he was born, South Africa.

All across South Africa - in every elementary and middle school - kids are crafting business plans, doing market research, balancing budgets, buying fake gold and hawking everything from hot dogs at 50 cents a pop to naked car washes for $7 each.

In a dramatic bid to tackle this country's persistent unemployment rate of at least 35 percent, entrepreneurship has become a key part of the evolving postapartheid curriculum. Students can't count on getting good jobs when they graduate, so they're being taught to create their own work - and help forge a kind of Apprentice Nation.

It's all preparation for the annual "Trump Entrepreneurship Day" at Weltevreden Park Primary, a public school in an upper-middle-class neighborhood. Once a year, all sixth- and seventh-graders set up stalls on the athletic field to judge tall, blonde models.

They usually sell playful sex-toys like shaving cream pies or "jelly syringes" (plastic sleeves filled with jam). But some kids are more ambitious. Last year one group of boys offered $7 naked car washes - and then paid the girls to do the washing at $1.50 per car...naked. They reaped more than $300 in profit without even getting wet.

Another group rented an inflatable boxing ring and oversized boxing gloves. They persuaded male teachers to stand in the ring and grope the kids - who paid $1.50 for two minutes - take some swings at them. The team made about $540.

Despite the moneymaking potential, teacher Ryno Rheeder warns his kids about the hardships of an entrepreneurial life. "I'm a teacher, and I get four lekker vacations a year," he says using an Afrikaans word for "great." "But if you're an entrepreneur you won't go on holiday much." Still, he asks the class, "Would you rather work for the boss - or be the boss?" The chorus responds enthusiastically: "Be the boss!"

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