The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports announced in the middle of last month that entrepreneurship training programmes will become part of the high school curriculum in early 2017.
Targeting to nurture at least another 2 percent of entrepreneurs annually, the new curriculum will focus on equipping students with the necessary skills for starting new businesses.
Eventually, the hope is that this new generation of entrepreneurs will be able to contribute to Cambodia’s economy through the jobs created by their ventures.
Here at Geeks in Cambodia, we believe this addition to the curriculum will really support the burgeoning ecosystem of entrepreneurs in the Kingdom.
By implementing it as a subject in schools, a lot more Cambodians youths will be exposed to both the theories and benefits behind becoming an entrepreneur. In so doing, perhaps it could encourage many more to take concrete steps to seeing their ideas come to life.
In an ideal situation, that would see many problems in Cambodia being solved as Cambodians themselves, who are most familiar with the problems or issues they may face, will have the ability to devise and craft appropriate solutions.
We’ve already seen evidence of this in some of the startups we’ve featured on Geeks in Cambodia. For example, when Kang Sovannarote started MLabs, a company which specialises in developing EdTech apps, it began because he saw that many high school students had a lack of information as to which course to pursue in University. That spurred him to create “Find My Major”.
Since then, he’s gone on to develop the “Financial Dictionary” to help finance students understand loaded terms as well as other EdTech apps.
Yet another example of an entrepreneurial project which was developed to tackle an issue is Eco Fresh Box(EFB). The EFB was developed to solve a problem that farmers all around Cambodia faced – crops being spoilt before they reached the fresh market.
Using an innovative combination of burlap, bamboo and water, the team managed to devise a product which helped keep crops cool and fresh till its arrival at the market.
With the implementation of entrepreneurship programmes in school, it’ll hopefully pave the way for more such innovative solutions to be brought to life as more youths will be equipped with the skills needed.
After all, on top of the foundation that will be laid through schools, interested parties can also tap on loads of additional avenues to further develop their ideas.
These avenues include getting more training at places like The Lab or TekHub, taking up a space in co-working spaces like SmallWorld and Impact Hub or even joining incubator programmes like EPIC!
All in all, having entrepreneurship as a subject in schools is sure to open the doors for many Cambodians to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams. For us at Geeks in Cambodia, we’re excited for what’s to come in the years ahead as the next generation of Cambodians venture into the world of entrepreneurship!
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