Students get money to take dreams from board to life
NEWDELHI: Three months after the Entrepreneurship Mindset Curriculum (EMC) was introduced in 1,030 Delhi government schools, students of class 11 and 12 are now being given Rs 1,000 each to make use of the skills acquired in these classes.
Officials in the Directorate of Education (DOE) said Rs 28.14 crore has been allocated for the purpose and over 2,80,000 students, studying in class 11 and 12, will receive a sum of Rs 1,000 each as “seed money.”
Designed to provide “immersive and experiential learning”, the field activity would involve students using the seed money to apply their entrepreneurial mindsets in real life. A team of EMC members are currently working on guidelines on how the seed money would be used.
“We are currently finalising the guidelines and orientation for the activity will be conducted as per it. For instance, students could be encouraged to look at three types of problems—needbased community issues, social causes, and talent-based projects. Students could look into how they can use their talents for business. Following the ideation process, students will form teams and present their proposals in the classrooms,” said an official concerned with the matter.
On Tuesday, education minister Manish Sisodia interacted with students of two Delhi government schools in Mayur Vihar and Vinod Nagar and discussed EMC classes with them. Students told the deputy chief minister about their projects including food stalls, making hair accessories, etc to be implemented with the seed money.
“Around 2.5 lakh students graduate from Delhi every year. If 50,000 of them become entrepreneurs, we will not have the problem of joblessness anymore. For this, having the entrepreneurial mindset is very important,” Sisodia said.
Vandana Jha, an EMC teacher in School of Excellence Kalkaji, said that since the midterm examinations were over, students were planning to set-up a school fair with various stalls where they could sell their craftswork. “We have a total of 320 students in class 11 and 12. Students have also approached us saying they want to set up some kind of canteen services and stationery shops so that students don’t have to go out,” she said.
Students from Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya, Ramesh Nagar, too are planning to prepare gifts for the festive seasons and set up henna stalls. Apart from this, the students are also planning to develop an application to help the elderly, produce cloth bags to combat plastic pollution, and set-up selfie booths at India Gate.