Trincomalee int’l declaration clicks earlier than expected

The initial draft of the pioneering international declaration on entrepreneur education announced on October 12 in Colombo is to be finalised earlier than expected.

“Given the importance of SMES in our economy, we recently concluded the first UNESCOAPEID event in Sri Lanka which was also the first in South Asia. It serves the reform vision of the Unity government to link our SMES to global markets,” Industry and Commerce Minister Rishad Bathiudeen said.

Bathiudeen was addressing the special presentation event on October 22 at BMICH on the validation session of the second draft report ‘Legal and Institutional Study for Creating Enabling Environment for SMES’, commissioned by the Industry and Commerce Ministry.

The pioneering Entrepreneurship Education (EE) series by UNESCOAPEID held for the first time in South Asia successfully concluded in Colombo on 12 October. The event, seventh in the global series was launched in Trincomalee on October 9 with the participation of delegates from 21 countries, resulted in a landmark international declaration that was made by participating international delegates, has now become a key initiative in global Entrepreneur Education (EE) reforms.

The declaration, once adopted by participants, shall introduce best practices in EE, as well as introduce EE to secondary, tertiary and TVET global curricula for the first time.

“I am pleased to inform that the first draft of this declaration is to be made available within the next three weeks’ time. We believe we lack in good EE and there is a need to learn from international best practices as well,” Bathiudeen said.

The seventh UNESCO-APEID Sri Lanka series also elevated Sri Lanka as the newest Chair of prestigious UNESCO-APEID EE series-making it the first South Asian country to clinch this Chair- and as a result, Sri Lanka will lead the meeting series until Hong Kong or Brunei takes over later on.

NEDA, Sri Lanka’s apex entrepreneur development agency under the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, aims to develop Lankan economy by encouraging, promoting, and facilitating the budding Lankan startups, entrepreneurs and SMES.

Minister Rishad Bathiudeen (fourth from left) at the closure of pioneering UNESCOAPEID meeting in South Asia on 12 October evening at JAIC Hilton Colombo joined by NEDA Chairman/dg Dakshitha Bogollagama (far left), visiting Prof Dr. Richard C Geibel (VP-MIT Club Germany-third from left), visiting Chief of Section for Educational Innovation and Skills Development-unesco Bangkok Office Libing Wang (second from right), and UNESCO Bangkok Focal Point in Sri Lanka Himali Jinadasa (far right)