Come April, students studying in 24 government schools in the capital will be seen developing their “entrepreneurial mindsets” as part of the Delhi government’s Entrepreneurship Mindset Curriculum (EMC).

Around 24,000 students from class 9 onwards will be listening to stories of entrepreneurs and engaging in activity-based learning to develop a mindset that will help them become “job-givers” instead of “job-seekers”— a vision education minister Manish Sisodia has been highlighting since the curriculum was first announced last December.

All set to be launched on April 1, the pilot project will be carried out till May 10, following which feedback will be taken from the 24 schools and incorporated in the final curriculum, to be implemented across all schools in July.

“This course is the need of the hour,” said M Shariq Ahmed, principal, School Of Excellence in Kalkaji, where the curriculum will be taught Monday onward. Pointing towards the lack of conditioning in children, Ahmed said the EMC will encourage them to develop out-of-the-box ideas. “Conventionally, parents tell their children to get jobs with good packages. EMC will open a window in their minds that there is an alternative and it can lead them to success,” he said.

Eleven units — including critical thinking, collaboration, self-awareness, bouncing back from failure, identifying opportunities, and decision-making — have been developed in the curriculum for the pilot project. These include stories, activities and discussions to help build each of the particular facets in the children.

The activities chosen for the curriculum include Sanjhi Tasveer, wherein every student will be asked to draw an object of their choice on a paper and pass it to the next. Once everyone is done, the teacher will conduct discussions on the final result.

“When we tested this activity, someone made a road, the next person, drew a boat on it. So, one person’s road can come across as a river to someone else. It helps children understand other perspectives,” said Mekin Maheshwari, founder of the Udhyam Learning Foundation and a volunteer for the project. “After this activity, we trigger conversations about products around us and ask students to think how it reaches the end consumer. For instance, in a sketch pen, the ink, the body and the cap are made at different places. This way, students can connect this simple activity to real life.”

A three-day training conducted for 480 teachers, wherein “facilitators and mentor teachers” discussed the curriculum, culminated last Tuesday. While a teacher from an all-girls government school in west Delhi pointed out the need to include more stories of women entrepreneurs, another from a school in north-west Delhi pointed towards a major roadblock in entrepreneurship. “Many people have entrepreneurial mindset but they cannot become Krishna Yadav, who started a business of pickle, as they are struggling due to lack of financial means,” said Sanjiv Jain, Economics teacher, RPVV, Shalimar Bagh. “Ideas should be backed by financial support.”

In February, the government had announced seed money of ₹1,000 for students of classes 11 and 12 to help them test whatever they learn in the EMC classes. “The objective is to make children recognise their own abilities and see what they can do with this money,” Sapna Yadav, senior lecturer at SCERT and in-charge of the project, said, adding that they plan to provide the money during the vacation after the September examination.

First Published: Mar 31, 2019 02:28 IST