Garodia International Centre for Learning Mumbai (GICLM) - Mumbai’s leading international school - hosted its first Young Entrepreneurs workshop recently. Groups of students were challenged to create a new product, tasked with thinking about how to market it and devise a price and profitability structure and then convince the judges in their presentation about the strength of their idea. Students learned in practical situations how teams work and how communication is vital for success. Ultimately, parents were very impressed in the audience and many budding future entrepreneurs may just have been encouraged for the future.
The idea of integrating entrepreneurship into the education system has become a popular idea within many countries for reasons such as:
- Economic advantages: The belief that a country’s economic success and development will be enhanced by a better entrepreneurial understanding amongst our future workforce.
- Societal improvement: The idea that with such understandings many societal issues can be solved such as unemployment and urban development.
- Citizenship: The notion that entrepreneurship improves the political understanding of young people as future voters in a vibrant and fast paced democracy leading to greater equality and opportunities.
- Classroom learning: That theoretical aspects of education can be improved with the experience of entrepreneurial activities and concepts that link learning to the real world.
Simply put, an entrepreneurial education offers skills necessary for the 21st Century.