SINGAPORE, June 9: An Indian-origin international school in Singapore has introduced a unique entrepreneurship course for its students aimed at preparing them for “digital disruption” and making them future-ready.
The course for students of 8 to 12 grade at the Global Indian International School (GIIS) uses non-traditional learning models to ignite and encourage entrepreneurship in children.
The boot-camp is derived from a popular MBA course taught at the INSEAD Business School in Singapore which is ranked number 1 business school in the world.
The children begin with a session on ideation, then evolve these ideas into real businesses and finally conclude with a fund-raising pitch to real-world venture capital and angel investors.
“GIIS has made a bold move to respond to digital disruption and the changing educational environment by introducing these type of curricula to students early,” said Ash Singh, an MBA lecturer at INSEAD in Singapore.
“Global job markets are rapidly changing and so are the skills required to fill future roles, so we want to get ahead of the curve and start focusing more on nurturing students with skills ranging from creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship,” said Rohit Ambekar, Director of Business & Strategy at GIIS.
Singh, who has over a decade of experience teaching Entrepreneurship at INSEAD Business School, has modified the MBA course to be relevant to the needs of younger students and has been personally conducting the boot-camps.
“The exposure given to students ranges from thinking, planning, resourcing, raising funds and implementing their concepts into real enterprises,” Singh said.
Ambekar believes that entrepreneurship as a mindset and skill set are critical for younger children.
“The feedback from the participating students and their parents has been fantastic, so we are going to roll this out to our other GIIS campuses worldwide,” Ambekar said.
GIIS is one of the world’s largest operators of International schools, teaching more than 15,000 students in 20 campuses in Singapore, Japan, India, Middle East, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.
GIIS’ Tokyo campus has attracted a large number of Japanese students to its Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) curriculum.
“These students have really impressed me and I am really looking forward to seeing some of them starting up their own social and commercial enterprises,” Singh said. (PTI)
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