The program to foster entrepreneurship
SECONDARY
The NGO Youth Entrepreneurship, inspired by the model of David McClellandThe program targeted young students ages 16–18 who were enrolled in the 12th grade of vocational high school (the last year of secondary education). The program was accompanied by the development of course materials, including a high-quality student hardcover textbook and a teacher textbook, the latter of which included class-by-class guidelines and videos for each activity to be performed. The program also included three pre-implementation training seminars and pilot/simulated training workshops that took place before the core curriculum was implemented in the teachers’ schools. Importantly, the program’s coaches worked together with schoolteachers to ensure the intervention was homogeneous across schools, and to generate local capabilities within each school.The intervention was designed as follows. The classroom was transformed into a friendly game room. All school desks were put aside, and the chairs were arranged in a semi-circle to ensure that each student would sit the same distance from the center. The students were then taught to recognize their own strengths and weaknesses by acting through games and reflections/deliberations, working in teams under pressure, addressing complex tasks, and setting their own goals to be achieved through these tasks. Finally, a discussion about the learning objectives was conducted after each session.