Making the cut: Why students' side hustles are big business

Sydney Morning Herald

27-07-2025

'When you're a school and teaching students to get everything right, you have to have a way of teaching them that getting things wrong is fine,' Sever says.
'The resilience it takes to come back [from failure] is something kids need to learn.'
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For the school of more than 4800 students, that lesson comes in the form of a compulsory program called StartUp, run for year 8 students, which teaches entrepreneurship in the most practical of ways: by asking students to identify a business idea and launch it to see if it will fly.
The subject then becomes an elective in year 9 and part of the school's co-curriculum for interested senior students.
Yin says his backyard barber business has taught him time management, communication skills and how to stick at something long-term.
'It's about being committed and not slacking off,' he says. 'To keep chipping away, and slowly you improve.'
Other students' side hustles include a clothing label run by year 10 student Oliver Schreurs, an online decorative keychain business run by year 11 student Amelly Chea and a drone photography business which has seen year 10 student Suvan Sujeendran take on five employees.
Without knowing it, Sever says students are picking up valuable skills including managing commitments, problem-solving and people skills.
Sever, one of the school's deputy principals, says these are lessons best learnt through experience.
'Entrepreneurship is a big deal,' she says. 'It's in the DNA of this school.'
But private school students are not the only ones taking hands-on lessons in how to become entrepreneurs.
In April, Mansfield Secondary College received $6250 in state government funding for students to launch and run small businesses as part of the school's VCE Vocational Major program.
The money raised from the students' small businesses will go towards modifying two classrooms as part of an 'applied learning hub'.
The school's vocational major head' Jade O'Connor says some students started a label called Summit Society, with beanies the first item to be sold in the school and local community. Other students started a car washing business.
'That's been the business which we put the least amount [of money] into, and yet it's turned the biggest profit,' O'Connor says.
She says it is rewarding watching students work together to achieve a goal and building business relationships with industry.
'I've seen leadership like I've never seen before,' she says.
Mansfield Secondary College assistant principal Janessa Burkhardt says she is proud of the projects the students have delivered in such a short time.