TOWARDS
AN ENTREPRENEURIAL CULTURE FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTUR
PART- V
Lessons learned
Pedagogical requirements
The need for research and consultations
Many of the programmes have been successful because they were preceded by research on the learning needs and expectations of young people in the socio-economic con-texts of their communities, the opportunities already open to them, as well as the skills being sought by employers. This may have started with a youth-oriented situa-tion analysis, including identification of the target groups, issues related to secondary education reform and specific problems such as rural-urban migration trends.
Labour market information is also an important resource to guide planning in education. The success of reforms to secondary education will depend on a better understanding of labour markets, predicting their evolution and understanding skill trends and structures resulting from changes in products, technology and forms of work organization. Meanwhile, the increasing focus on prevention to diminish the risks of vulnerability involves greater cross-sectoral research to inform plan-ning, especially the linkages between education, urban and rural migration patterns, health, livelihoods and community empowerment mechanisms.
Research is also needed to identify factors that support and inhibit the integra-tion of entrepreneurship education into secondary school systems in different con-texts. This would include a dynamic analysis of entrepreneurship trends in different cultural and social settings, the attitudes of key decision makers at different levels of government and across sectors, teachers’ assumptions and beliefs about entre-preneurship and its relationship to sustainability issues and the willingness of local businesses, NGOs, community organizations to actively support its integration into secondary schooling.
Indonesia: Youth for Youth
In 2003, the International Labour Organization instigated a number of nation-wide youth consultations and school-to-work transition surveys. In the youth consultations, covering 3 provinces, more than 400 young Indonesians were given the opportunity to express their views and to get actively involved in the Indonesian Youth Employment Network.
Some of the most frequent comments included concerns about:
• The high price of education.
• Unequal opportunities in the workplace, especially for young women.
• The education system not providing students with vocational qualifi cations increas-ingly sought after by employees.
• The lack of policies conducive to the creation of business start-ups.
The school-to-work transition surveys carried out by the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration (MoMT) with the support of the ILO interviewed 2,180 young people between the ages of 15-24.
The key findings have fed into the development of a Career Guidance Manual for the use by secondary and technical schools in pilot regions.
Korea
In order to make the education system more responsive to the needs of a knowledge-based society, the Korea Education and Research Information Service (KERIS) has car-ried research on the needs of industry and communities and recommended changes to the education system. The first is a change of direction based on learning, not on edu-cation to cultivate new intelligence essential for a successful knowledge-based society. The second change is to have the education system focus on students. The third change is the introduction of a creative and self-directed education method.
The need for dynamic school leadership and management
If schools are to inspire their students to creativity and creation, they must be creative themselves. This starts with dynamic head teachers and senior staff generating a sense of excitement and enthusiasm from the opportunity to do something different from the norm. They will need to motivate staff who have conventionally relied upon rote teaching and functional expertise to refocus in their teaching style and attitudes upon more entrepreneurial approaches. They will need to support teachers’ professional development, give them time for discussion, exchange of ideas and planning.
The need to foster a supportive environment for learning
Because of population movements and changes in family demographics, the learning environment now includes schools, teachers, assistants, neighbours, the business community, and an ever-expanding list of concerned citizens. Innovative schools, rather than seeing themselves at the primary source of knowledge and expertise, acknowledge their position as one actor within broader (and resource-rich) learning communities. They create frameworks for learning exchanges with different bodies within the civic realm at local, national and international levels, linking individuals, organizations and institutions both physically and electroni-cally, to enable students to become informed and resourced. They also recognize the diversity of students’ situations within classes. Even those classrooms that appear to be homogenous contain diversity in terms of gender, personality, moti-vations, physical abilities, ages, learning styles, and religious and political beliefs of students and therefore the programme sets out to make the learning process as inclusive as possible.
The need to integrate new educational approaches into the curriculum
On a practical level, the idea of introducing a new subject into an already over-crowded curricula will be problematic for many teachers. This is especially so for those already working in over-crowded and under-resourced classrooms in devel-oping and transition countries. Furthermore, a large degree of professional develop-ment will be needed, requiring extra efforts, motivation and commitment on behalf of school teaching and administrative staff.
The good news is that there are many different paths for fostering an entrepre-neurial spirit in the classroom and school community and beyond.
It may mean capturing the concepts and skills of entrepreneurship through the learning process. For learners, it may mean fi nding solutions to problems raised at different stages of the taught curriculum for different subject areas or allow students to offer up innovative ideas for improvement in the school environment.
Furthermore, there are a number of subjects already present in the curriculum which appear fertile ground for the inclusion of entrepreneurship and enterprise education concepts. The teacher may want to make a short reference to the entrepre-neurship topic when the curriculum warrants it. For example, in a language course students might learn about business terminology and practice or making a sale in another country. In a maths class, the students might be asked to work out a cash flow plan for a small business and identify the costs of hiring employees.
Turning personal interests into opportunities
Whatever the reason that puts students in an at-risk category, every single one has an interest, hobby, or fascination with something. This is usually the object of pre-occupa-tion when in the learning environment. Turn to these things as tools in your teaching and you will fi nd not only the attention you have been seeking, but also a devotion to what is being examined and taught.
While many at-risk students have a belief that they are doomed to a life of failure, they do have dreams and aspirations. They are afraid to share them for fear of rejection or ridicule. Share stories of others who have overcome obstacles and use the dreams and interests they have to form your approach to lessons.
A student interested in music probably has no idea of the importance of math in music. Bring in material illustrating this. Talk to them about math as it is applied in several different areas of music. For example, musicians use math to keep measure when writing and performing, they use it to mark and mix studio tracks during recording, and they need it to track finances and balance their budget. Without math, they couldn’t survive.
Some teachers may prefer to use one particular entrepreneurship education topic as a hub for teaching different curriculum areas. The integration of entrepre-neurship education in this way can provide a substantial clarification of what the learning is for.
The challenge is to use instructional approaches that grab the students’ interest and are meaningful and relevant to their concerns, while supporting the achieve-ment of stated educational goals. The amount of preparation will be important, requiring teachers of different subject areas to cooperate to reflect upon, plan and revise lessons.
What is also clear is that entrepreneurship education requires the teacher to look at the totality of subjects in order to determine existing skills and knowledge. They should identify how the students have previously been in contact with enterprise issues. How was the learning framed, and how could it be drawn into an entrepreneurship education framework? How would different instructional strategies be used to foster learning?
The need for a comprehensive package of careers guidance, support and counselling
Whatever the vocational or entrepreneurial content of the school curriculum, the role of careers guidance is in need of greater consideration. Young people need assistance in “navigating” and choosing between alternatives in a vast array of learning and training opportunities that can enhance their careers. Careers guidance is already established in western and some developing countries, such as Botswana or Malawi. However, in some of the poorer developing countries, institutionalized guidance is still almost non-existent as there have never been sufficient real jobs to justify having a careers programme.
In most of the planned economies of Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and China, careers guidance was not a priority until very recently, when schools had to begin to orient their leavers to a dramatically less certain, and more diverse, work environment. A similar scenario was recounted for the Arab States at the recent workshop on Youth & Employment in Post-Conflict Arab Countries, held in Beirut, Lebanon, from 28-30 January 2004 at the ESCWA premises.1
New forms of careers guidance, support and counselling are now needed so that young people can make the transition into the real economy and receive on-going support in their different choices of career pathways, whether this relates to self-employment or entry into an economic sector. One of the consequences of taking self-employment more seriously might be increasing the supply of information on informal sector careers, as well as information on business registration, sources of seed capital, market information, legal and judicial systems for protecting property rights and resolving contractual disputes, available subsidies and tax incentives. Another would be to invite self-employed local graduates back into the school as role models and sources of information. Especially in developing and transition countries, youth may not realize the discipline and tenacity needed to start a business. They could be helped by having more contact during their schooling with role models who can familiarize them with the various stages of venture creation, while fostering realistic expectations about the amount of work involved. The value of female role models could be enormous.
There is no one “correct” model for support and counselling. Clearly, to be successful, provision must reflect specifically the needs and characteristics of the stu-dents and be tailored to the local economic conditions. Schools and local education authorities would need to identify partners whom they could draw on for relevant expertise and perhaps engage in sponsoring provision.
Examples of programmes where information could be relevant for secondary school students
In the United Kingdom, the Department for Education and Skills, together with the Department for Trade and Industry and the Treasury, have developed New Entrepre-neur Scholarships to help potential entrepreneurs from deprived areas access business management skills, to turn their business ideas into reality and enhance the chances of that business succeeding.
In the United States, the Fund for Social Entrepreneurs, launched by Youth Service America (YSA) is an annual nation-wide competition to provide youths with start-up funds, professional management and leadership development. Chosen social entre-preneurs receive three years of instruction including two-year living and programme seed grants, computer assistance, and conference attendance reimbursement in the first two years.
In January 2003, Shell Pakistan Limited (SPL) launched a programme to provide career assistance to Pakistan youth under its’ Shell Tameer Programme. The company is conducting workshops and seminars at local centres in Hyderabad and Sukkur to aid budding entrepreneurs, as well as carrying out entrepreneurship development seminars at the Mehran University, Sindh University and Quaid-i-Awam University.
Citing one of the objectives of the programme, Ms. Afshan Khan Nanji, Manager of Shell Tameer Programme, said that it seeks to address the unemployment problem by supporting and encouraging young people to take on the challenge of starting a busi-ness. “We feel that Tameer is a constructive directive taken at the right time”, she said. Tameer is an adaptation of the sustainable development programme run under the name of Shell Livewire by the Shell Foundation globally.
In Zambia, the Potential Agribusiness Association of Zambia (PAAZ) promotes agricul-ture as a business. The organization provides training in use of the Internet to women and youth whose livelihoods depend entirely on farming. PAAZ provides a nerve centre for marketing and production information on alternative agricultural enterprises that are suitable for small-scale farming. The organization trains resource-poor farmers in enter-prise management and entrepreneurship skills and links farmers to micro-fi nancing institutions, out-grower schemes and agribusiness companies.
The need for teacher training and professional development
The demands of entrepreneurship and enterprise education are high for teachers, especially those working in under-resourced schools and over crowded classrooms. They will need to be willing to revisit their assumptions on the meaning of enter-prise and the role it plays in society, besides having knowledge of the context of enterprise, local economic history.
They will need to know how the components of business fit together, as well as how they impact on the environment, the local community and human welfare. They must also be able to blend their education expertise with an understanding of multiple issues facing youth. This means communicating effectively with students, respecting them as people with special needs, and treating them accordingly.
What’s more, teachers will be required to constantly update their skills and their experience of current business practices, as well as being prepared to experi-ment and innovate with different teaching methods that nurture the individual knowledge, distinct talents and motivation of each student. They must also be able to create a community network to support the learning process.
In other words, they need to be driven and entrepreneurial themselves. In the best circumstances, the training of teachers for entrepreneurship or enterprise education should take place through specialized courses and teacher training seminars. Each country would need a body of nationally or internationally accredited trainers to ensure that standards are maintained, at the same time as new concepts are developed. But this is not realistic for all countries. With the current resource constraints facing many governments, the challenge then becomes how to create scaleable, low-cost teacher training opportunities.
Initial teacher training programmes for secondary level in most countries may already cover business studies or home economics and therefore teachers will already.
“Entrepreneurial Education in Pieksämäki area”
The “Entrepreneurial Education in Pieksämäki area” project has created a teaching model and a curriculum for the Pieksämäki area. The central themes are employment and self-employment – the capability and potential to offer work to others, and acquire work for oneself.
Teachers from different schools in the area come together and form a team and then brainstorm ideas for how to foster an entrepreneurial spirit in all the schools from day-care to adult education. At the beginning of the school year, the team prepares a local entrepreneurship curriculum. In the autumn they organize a Young Entrepre-neur event. Curriculum is then fi nalized for all school levels. The team also provides teacher training in entrepreneurial education. Schools themselves organize special days devoted to entrepreneurship education, which also act as outreach opportunities for securing the support of parents.
have basic knowledge of economic concepts. Consequently, they only need a frame-work for understanding them as a whole and from a variety of perspectives.
There may also be opportunities for secondary teachers to upgrade their theo-retical and practical skills as part of their continuing professional development. In the case of entrepreneurship and enterprise education, in-service training should help keep them abreast of economic and ecological concepts, strategies of poverty reduction, workforce trends, and available technologies.
The need to draw lessons from non-formal education
Secondary education is charged with preparing young people for the choice of life pathways and shaping them for their future responsibilities. But until recently, expe-riences in mainstream schooling seemed removed from the knowledge accumulated in the non-formal sector on the types of education delivery that most successfully meet the basic education, health, life skills and livelihood needs of the most vulner-able, under-served population groups in urban and rural settings.
Around the world, different programmes under the umbrella of micro-finance or community empowerment provide interventions ranging from the development of business skills to mentoring, counselling, outreach, awards and competitions, training of trainers and access to credit, etc., through a variety of partners and modalities. Most try to integrate the natural learning processes and assets of youth living in difficult circumstances and help them to become self-reliant by developing their own small business idea, sharpening their academic skills, forming positive attitudes about them-selves and their communities as well as the leadership skills required in the workplace.
Many of the programmes are implemented with a sectoral focus (e.g. entre-preneurship through new technologies, e-commerce) or are offered as part of a live-lihoods and life skills package (e.g. HIV/AIDS prevention, drug rehabilitation or adolescent reproductive health), particularly in the developing world. Some pro-grammes also specifically target different population groups, such as minority or indigenous groups, young girls and women or have a geographic focus, i.e. rural areas or urban slum dwellings. A broader model has recently evolved around the concept of life skills which encompasses the psycho-social aspects of dealing with issues related to vulnerability and poverty, as well as education for citizenship, basic skills training, welfare and health services.
The success of these programmes is mostly accredited to their flexibility in delivery methods and the recognition of the multiple needs and diverse issues facing young people. As yet there are still poor linkages between formal education systems and non-formal/not-for-profit training providers in many countries. The introduc-tion of entrepreneurship or enterprise education at secondary education would be speeded up by drawing lessons in the areas of curriculum relevance, professional development and research from these models and even creating partnerships with non-formal programme suppliers, whom are closely connected to the communities in which they work. Countries such as Australia, Singapore and South Africa are also beginning to integrate such non-formal training supply into national systems of recognized qualifications.
The need to exploit the potential of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs)
Modern communication and information technologies (ICT), in particular the Internet-based technologies, offer great opportunities. ICTs are used by increasing the number of people as learning tools, since access to them is expanding rapidly in the advanced, as well as in many middle-income countries and free courses are becoming available on the Internet. A recent survey of ICT workers in Vietnam
“Young Minds in Motion”
This international initiative has been funded by the proceeds from Bill Gates’ book, Business @ the Speed of Thought. The $2 million programme will fund community-based charitable organizations worldwide for projects that support the educational and skills development of disadvantaged children through innovative use of technology. Warner Books is also donating a portion of their proceeds to the same causes.
An initial donation of $500,000 was made to the International Youth Foundation in the United States. The donated funds will be used to support technology-based pro-grammes for approximately 10,000 disadvantaged young people to expand their edu-cational and training opportunities. Specifi cally, funds will be directed at the following programmes:
In northern Poland, 4,000 students in 9 rural schools will have the chance to improve their academic performance and future employment prospects through tech-nology-based learning. Students in this economically depressed region of the country are at high risk of dropping out of school due to social and economic pressures.
In South Africa, technology will be used to promote HIV/AIDS prevention among the 720 adolescents in Mpumalonga, a remote northern province. Over 4,000 young people in Soweto will be provided with technological tools and training to expand their career options and build self-confi dence.
In the Philippines, the donation will support a programme equipping 240 low-income and out-of-school young boys and girls with practical skills in computer repair and maintenance. An additional programme will provide 160 hearing impaired children with access to specialized software to improve their speech, reading, and writing skills.
The above activities are planned and carried out in conjunction with IYF’s national Partner in each country: the Polish Children and Youth Foundation, the Children and Youth Foundation of the Philippines and the Youth Development Trust (South Africa).
found that 70 per cent of those trained in computer skills had learned them via CD-ROM or on the Internet.
Having said this, programme designers have to be realistic. Programmes will not be affordable, relevant or sustainable unless they are also based on the use of tech-nologies that are easily available within the locality. This covers a whole range of both traditional techniques that have been around for centuries and modern technologies. In developing countries, it will be more realistic to launch programmes through the application of traditional, indigenous knowledge and skills to solving basic problems and thus to reduce communities’ dependency on expertise from outside. The low cost of local technologies makes them easily replicable wherever similar problems exist.
Countries wishing to introduce entrepreneurship education should be assisted in carrying out a review of existing materials of development programmes and tools in both formal and non-formal systems, to identify those that could be easily scaled up, replicated or adapted. Education authorities can also identify potential partners in the private and NGO sectors that may be able to sponsor courses or provide equipment.
The need for certification and accreditation
Certification and accreditation systems are necessary to indicate skills standards and competencies achieved through participation in the programme and to act as bench marks for curriculum development, performance assessment and occupa-tional classification.
Some schools have made use of the flexibility allowed in the senior curriculum to ensure community activities are accredited at exit.
The need for monitoring and evaluation
School organizations need to reflect on the increasing awareness that tracking stu-dents by academic ability is a strategy that may make teaching “easier” but does great damage to children. Innovating the education process must involve the development of culturally appropriate methods of ascertaining changes in behaviours and atti-tudes, as well as measuring the outcomes of entrepreneurship and enterprise educa-tion in ways that will substantially contribute to students’ life pathways.
But while young people cannot be expected to become entrepreneurial over-night, it should be possible to develop a set of quality indicators that will give entrepreneurship and enterprise education a more prominent place within national education agendas and ensure that learning goals are compatible with national edu-cation priorities and skills standards.
The University of Durham Business School suggests that short-term indicators for measuring the overall effectiveness of embedding enterprise education into national education systems could include the following questions:
• How many schools are involved? Over what geographical area?
• How many teachers are involved?
• Has enterprise education been integrated into the curriculum?
• Is there a named contact for enterprise education in each school?
• Do parents and employers understand and support enterprise education?
• Are local partners supporting the process?
• How will the programme be sustained financially?
• To what extent has the Ministry of Education integrated enterprise education into any educational reform?
Measuring skills such as decision-making, negotiation and planning before and after an activity can be quite straightforward. More in-depth analysis could be achieved by looking at the extent to which participation in programmes increases curriculum relevance for students, addresses their cultural needs, lessens mismatch between student ability and achievement, increases variety in learning materials, etc.
Other considerations
The need to create linkages between entrepreneurship education programmes and broader development frameworks
Similarly, programmes at secondary and vocational levels could be more closely inte-grated into broader development frameworks and training strategies.
For those students who do want to go into self-employment or consider entre-preneurship as a viable career option, education and training must go hand in hand with creating favourable conditions for small enterprise development among young people. This begins with assessing the incentives and disincentives that economic policies may create, perhaps unintentionally, for smaller businesses. Small enterprises must be able to be profitable and competitive. The first step, then, is to examine poli-cies that do not specifically target youth entrepreneurship but may affect it, such as fiscal and monetary policies, trade regimes, education and training, social protec-tion, gender equality, and occupational safety and health.
The contribution of entrepreneurship and enterprise education to broader soci-etal goals also needs to be made much more explicit as there are possibilities for broad-based support, and for the insertion of these programmes into development frameworks. For example, at international level, the Millenium Development Goals and the new Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) 2 go further to locate edu-cation and training within a broad, anti-poverty focus. The adoption of sector-wide approaches by several agencies 3 articulate the importance of education and skills training to resolving entrenched social community problems. Many agencies, such as the InterAmerican Bank (IDB) and DANIDA have also made explicit the link-ages between skills development and environmental protection.
Regional frameworks are also important. For example, in transition countries, links can be established between vocational education reforms and the Phare and Tacis Programmes.4 The European Training Foundation, which is facilitating the reform of vocational education in European Community Member States, could be a partner organization, like the Business Educators Network for Entrepreneurship (BENE).
At national level, youth entrepreneurship policies should take account of existing policy guidelines. For example, youth targeted interventions in transition countries should draw on the lessons of the “Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development in Transition Economies: Policy Guidelines and Recommendations”.5 These were developed as a collaborative effort between UNIDO and the OECD, which organ-ized the Forum on Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development (FEED) in 1999. The guidelines and recommendations contained are intended to be a general frame-work within which private sector development and the promotion of SMEs can be undertaken in transition countries while, at the same time, recognizing that different objectives, conditions, and resources in each country require a customized approach.
Other guidelines include the Enterprise and Management development working paper (EMD/13/E) “Guidelines for the analysis of policies and programmes for small and medium enterprise development”, by A. Tolentino, and “Socially Responsible Enterprise Restructuring” (chapters I to IV), a joint Working Paper of the ILO and the European Bahá’í Business Forum. Both papers are available through the Job Creation and Entreprise Development Department of the ILO.
All of these trends reinforce and underline the possibilities for a broader appli-cation of entrepreneurship education at secondary level in the future. There are and will be potential problems in introducing entrepreneurship education into schools. First of all, overcoming the misconception that entrepreneurship is only about busi-ness. Secondly, that it has to be taught as a separate subject matter. Thirdly, govern-ments cannot change cultural perspectives overnight.
The need for local government leadership
Local governments are uniquely positioned as they have an overview of what devel-opment strategies are being implemented in the locality and can create linkages across sectoral and administrative boundaries. They are also in a unique position to bring all stakeholders to the table and to identify overlapping agendas and the skills businesses needed to develop appropriate education and training programmes.
Local politicians can play a critical role in articulating the case for innovation and creativity in educational planning. Local governments and authorities need to be sensitised to the central role that entrepreneurship education can play in
— long-term local economic growth strategies;
— tackling urban and rural poverty;
— contributing to sustainable development.
Planning for the development of local areas (sub regions) on the basis of such long-term considerations will require joined-up service provision that encompasses edu-cation, health, justice, housing, social security, drug and mental health and new institutional approaches.
National frameworks
Improvement Plans and Development Plans are key vehicles for local authorities and schools to take forward the entrepreneurship education agenda.
• National Development Strategies
• National Poverty Reduction Strategy
• Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP)
• National Action Plans for Youth
• Education and Training Policy
• The Technical Education and Training Policy
• Policy Paper on Local Government Reform
• National EFA Strategy
• The National Employment Promotion Service Act
• The regional alignments, PHARE, SADC, etc.
The need to extend the scope of strategic partnerships
Economic and social or cultural development issues are now so complexly inter-related that one agency cannot make a dent by itself. Schools need to figure out which organizations have similar goals to theirs, and identify ways they can work together.
Most funding agencies today emphasize the value of partnerships, while govern-ments are beginning to forge genuine alliances with other agencies that possess com-parative advantages in various aspects of education and training provision. The closer engagement of a broad spectrum of national institutions, comprising employers and trade unions, Chambers of Industry and Commerce, public and private training insti-tutions, universities and representatives of civil society is helping to greater coherency across traditional sectoral boundaries towards education goals. In particular, partner-ships between schools and local NGOs and the private sector increase the relevance of secondary education to local development, social and labour market needs.
The potential for direct private sector participation in the provision of educa-tion and training needs to be further explored in developing and transition coun-tries, especially given the need for relevance and the strong political support for it. The private sector, including employers’ and workers’ organizations, could con-tribute and participate in curricula reviews, and act as role models/guest speakers on topical issues. But schools can also explore ways in which they could piggyback on broader initiatives by the private sector to support learning in different settings.
There will need to be greater coordination between schools and existing entre-preneurship and enterprise training institutions and providers, whether universities,
Private sector support to digital development in the Middle East
There are an estimated 3.5 million Internet users in the Middle East and the fi gure is expected to exceed 5 million by 2004. Twelve million people will be logged on by 2005.
In respect of this growth in usage, many Middle East business leaders signed the CEO Charter for Digital Development in September 2003, pledging 20 percent of budgets allocated to community or “corporate citizenship” projects to promoting greater computer literacy.
Jordan in particular has modelled itself as an IT education leader and recently announced a unique partnership – the Jordan Education Initiative – between local authorities and business to reinforce information and communication technology learning in its schools.
Nearly 100 Jordanian schools have been identifi ed as “test beds” for the scheme and 20 corporations, including Cisco and Microsoft, pledged their support. Its patron, King Abdullah II, says that the programme aims to nurture a culture of self-discovery and invention, with the aim to transform the way in which Arab society harnesses the potential of its youth. Clearly, the implications for Jordanian and Arab entrepreneurship in general are profound.
Bahrain: Regional Focal Point Country for the Arab Region for the Entrepreneurship Development Institute
In 1998, Bahrain was identifi ed as the Regional Focal Point Country for the Arab Region for the Entrepreneurship Development Institute (jointly sponsored by UNIDO and the Government of India). In 1999, capacity-building activities were initiated at the University of Bahrain and the Bahrain Training Institute. A series of training pro-grammes on entrepreneurship development and investment promotion were carried out and helped establish a cadre of well-qualifi ed professional trainers and contributed to new enterprise creation in the form of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and partnerships.
In February 2001, the Arab Regional Centre for Entrepreneurship and Investment Training (ARCEIT) was formally opened. The Centre sees its role in the region as a repository of knowledge and information, a forum for the exchange of experience and insights into entrepreneurship and organizer and supporter of entrepreneurship devel-opment and investment promotion initiatives.
It has already selected focal point institutions in Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Sudan and Syria. Its programmes to date have benefi ted entrepreneurs and professionals from: Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Sultanate of Oman, Sudan and the Palestinian Authority.
foundations, vocational education institutions, enterprise boards, trade unions, or not-for-profit organizations. International training programmes including the German Development Technical Cooperation SME programme (CEFE), the ILO’s “Start Your Business” and the UNDP’s Empretec also need to be linked up into plans to expand entrepreneurship education at secondary level.
In some countries, secondary schools have created partnerships with local universities to increase knowledge transfer and sharing of expertise. In the United States, for example, students from the Freeman School (a university business school) in the New Orleans area add value to schools participating in the Academies of Entrepreneurship (AoE) by volunteering their time in the classrooms, sharing their business knowledge and assisting AoE students in developing their business ideas. This permits Freeman students themselves to challenge and apply skills they have learned and contribute something back to the community.
Similarly, since 2000, rural entrepreneurship senior students at the University of Vermont (UVM) majoring in rural entrepreneurship have been working with local high schools registered in REAL programme. Such cooperation was made pos-sible through a service learning curriculum elaborated by the Department of Com-munity Development and Applied Economics (CDAE).
At the international level, the US-based National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship has experience of training teachers and developing curriculum at secondary level in a number of African countries and could become an active partner.
The need for communications and outreach
Communication programmes play an essential role in educating, informing, and motivating young people to the benefits of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship may not be part of the culture and traditions of the community and people may have misperceptions about what it actually means. So educators will need to be able to explain it in all its various forms, take the mystery away and help people visualise it as a viable alternative.
Presenting positive behaviour models is important as an environment in which entrepreneurship is esteemed, and in which stigma does not automatically attach to business failure, will generally be more conducive to entrepreneurship. Role models, especially women and minority groups, with real-life stories to inspire are an impor-tant part of communications and outreach.
Another critical element is to raise awareness among local and national policy-makers, families and communities about the importance of dealing with the issues facing youth. Functionaries in the education system and support institutions, be they government departments, development organizations or fi nancial institutions, may not appreciate the potential role that entrepreneurship education could play to broader social goals.
The international community and the private sector are already playing a crit-ical role in terms of outreach in some regions. For example, the Inter-American Development Bank is helping to generate awareness among the general public, gov-ernment agencies and the non-profit and private sectors on the contributions and value of youth participation in development in Latin America. Best practices and model programmes of youth development are being shared among Member States through conferences, audio-visual materials, publications, television programming, press articles, a monthly youth newsletter, an Internet web site, and the creation of project-specific databases.
In the United States and Europe, efforts to communicate the importance of entrepreneurship education at secondary level to school administrators have increased, particularly through the medium of regional and national conferences, workshops, and training events. All of these facilitate opportunities for networking and sharing information on innovative approaches.
In Africa, entrepreneurship and enterprise education are still in their infancy. So substantially greater efforts will be needed to document, raise awareness of and showcase successful pilot projects. This could be carried out through existing regional networks such as the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA). More use could also be made of local radio and other mass media.
Around the world, best practices and model programmes of youth develop-ment are being shared through conferences, audio-visual materials, publications, television programming, press articles, newsletters, Internet web sites and the creation of project-specific databases. Depending on the context, mass media and folk media in popular formats such as music, serial dramas, and variety shows, can also be used to present messages that can persuade and motivate young audiences to engage in activities towards self-empowerment.
The need to secure adequate financing
One of the main questions for schools wishing to introduce entrepreneurship or enterprise education is that of fi nancing. Programmes can be costly to set up and operate and many schools may have limited facilities, making the use of educational tools such as multimedia an impractical option. There is also the question of who will pay for teacher training and additional professional development, or any extra staff that might be needed?
Schools in Europe and North America have got around these questions by seeking out and leveraging partnership funding from businesses and other social partners. In some cases, funding has also come from national or local governments. In several African and Asian countries, a good number of junior secondary schools are partly or fully managed by their communities. This may give them more freedom to search for alternative funding sources. Different partnership agreements may exist with central governments whereby the latter may provide matching funds, or pay for one or several teachers.
Many of the examples in this report make the claim that a good programme needs creativity and energy, but not necessarily a lot of money. But where it is needed, a case for sustainable funding from the broader development community could be made when partners recognize the rationale for education programmes that provide a “preventive” service, reducing the likelihood that young people will need extensive remedial services later in life.
The need to engage actively in networks
Networking among all the various bodies and institutions is part of implementing entrepreneurship and enterprise education in that it helps to mobilize resources through the government, the administrative bureaucracy and business circles.
With respect to education support, one must not underestimate the impor-tance of co-operative efforts. These can become particularly salient in remote and rural areas.
Brazil and India – working together to address youth employment
On the occasion of the State Visit of President Lula of Brazil to India, on 27 January 2004, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed in his presence between Bhartiya Yuva Shakti (BYST), an Indian NGO, and Instituto Negocios da (INJ), a Bra-zilian NGO. BYST and INJ are part of Youth Business International (YBI), a partner organization of the Youth employment Network (YEN).
The purpose of this memorandum is to maximize the help that the two organizations can give to disadvantaged young people seeking to become entrepreneurs in India and Brazil. The organizations will exchange best practices in identifying, mentoring and monitoring young entrepreneurs.
The other areas of collaboration include exploring ways of building linkages between young entrepreneurs and mentors of both countries, especially for future trade links; exchanging ways of building capacity particularly involving the corporate sector; and working together for research and development of new models and tools using ICT and other technology.
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