Thursday 3 September 2015

High school entrepreneurship

The high school students of a school can form a "student volunteer club for making young entrepreneurs". They can launch this club on a special day like Global Youth Service Day (GYSD) etc. In this club, there could be different  product/enterprise sections. All these different product/enterprise sections could be headed by the senior school students.

The school can come into collaboration with the government agencies who can provide informal education on youth entrepreneurship. This informal education on entrepreneurship may become a valuable form of imparting skills to students for their future entrepreneurial opportunities. If students of one of the product/enterprise sections for example are interested in shoe polish or detergent powder, government agencies may send their experts/mentors on those products to the school.

The technical information for shoe polish formula as well as on the raw materials and manufacturing process of shoe polish or the technical information on how to make detergent powder, the formula, what are the raw material required and manufacturing process and for other products of the club can be made available to the students by their mentors. Wherever possible, the practical development of the product may take place. There could be a free distribution of the product samples to other students of the club, teachers, school staff, parents etc to take their opinion on the quality, pricing etc.The students can also take the samples to the local shop owners to know the feedback on how the customers of the shop rated it.

For students to understand the viability of the projects, banks can give lessons in the school. Banks can help in the development of project proposals from their point of view. This may become one of the bank's initiatives.

Students can be exposed to entrepreneurs to guide them about the market, risks etc and practically see the production in the factory.

There could be visit of other government and private professionals concerned with the factory laws, registration of unit etc. There could be professionals who could talk on how to cost a product, how to price it, choosing the best packaging material, designing of the material etc.

Students may share their skills with other students in the club.They become exposed to skills of many industries (micro, small, medium enterprises). Now there is less apprehension and more risk taking abilities developed in students.

A paper on each enterprise could be submitted in the school which may be then followed by banks interviewing students on their project proposals and assigning marks on their project.

Lastly there could be high school students entrepreneurs show, where the judges could be from banks, micro small medium enterprises (MSMEs) world, entrepreneurs, students etc. The students may present their work to others in the school so that the other students, teachers, school staff etc can vote for them. The best student based on the judges marks and vote  given, may be awarded by banks with a certificate and cash that the student may in future utilize it for his/her entrepreneurial activity.

If the volunteer organizations and NGOs can take up this activity in different government, municipality and private schools, then there may be development of many future new entrepreneurs.

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