WHO said business is boring?
Moloko Machaka (12) is a grade 7 pupil at Bapedi Primary School in Diepkloof zone 3. She was one of many schoolchildren who took part in a school market day.
Machaka and eight other pupils formed different groups that had their own stalls which offered different items or servicesto make a profit.
The schoolgirl told SunMoney: “I am not yet a businesswoman but I hope to learn a few things from today that could teach me. Like the other groups of grade 7 pupils, we had to come up with ideas on how to make money from our stall.
“Our idea was a photo studio that we had to create ourselves. We had to hire equipment that came to R57 for each of us.
“People who wanted to use our services had to pay R2. We also had a rabbit people could pose with in their pictures for R5 in total.
“The rabbit was so popular that we had to charge people R2 just to pet it,” she said.
Onkgopotse Seunane (12) worked at a stall with his group. They sold cold drinks to people for R5 a glass.
They worked out that five glasses covered the cost of a bottle of cold drink and once they covered the cost of the bottles, everything else was profit to be shared.
Market day is an annual event at schools around Mzansi. It is part of the school curriculum.
According to teacher Makhura Mahlodi, the day managed to generate R7 000 in sales although each group shared the profits earned among its members.
She said: “Market day is part of our class work. This is the practical display of their theoretical textbook learning. It is an important requirement because it shows how business operations require the pupil to use her or his whole brain and not just what he or she memorised from a textbook.
“It gives them the experience of adults working in jobs and what employment opportunities others haven’t discovered yet.”
