ENTREPRENEURSHIP is a component that has been mentioned in the Standard Docu-ment for the English Language Curriculum for primary schools.
According to the Standard Document, fostering the entrepreneurial mindset among pupils at a young age is an essential “tool” in today’s competitive and global age.
Some of the elements that are linked to entrepreneurship are creativity, innovation and initiative, which are also attributes for personal fulfilment and success.
The elements of entrepreneurship are to be incorporated in English language lessons through relevant and meaningful activities.
The English Language Teaching Centre (ELTC) in Enstek, Nilai organised an Outreach Carnival with the theme, “Entre-preneurship in the English Language Teaching Classroom” at its campus late last month.
It was in conjunction with World Book Day and Copyright Day.
Selected children from 12 primary schools in the vicinity and their teachers attended the two-day workshop-cum-presentation session.
Teacher trainees from IPG Kampus Teknik, and IPG Kampus Raja Melewar, both teacher education institutes in Negri Sembilan, were also invited for the event.
At the ELTC library, about 200 schoolchildren and 40 teacher trainees were exposed to the entrepreneurial elements through activities and workshops.
The teacher trainees in groups of five, were required to design a book cover. The maxim “do not judge a book by it’s cover” shows how important the cover of a book is for marketing purposes.
The teacher trainees were taught that resilience, creativity, self-belief and hard work were important skills to overcome life’s many hurdles and challenges.
The 200 children were placed in eight classrooms and were given entrepreneurial language activities.
In one session, the pupils were tasked with promoting and selling cupcakes.
The children were required to come out with innovative ideas and advertisements to sell the cupcakes.
In today’s tough economic times, only enterprising individuals are able to sell their products and services.
The tough economic times have made even small entrepreneurs “think out of the box”and come out with innovative and creative ideas to attract customers to their stalls.
We have read of a roti canai seller in Kepala Batas who by adding colour to his roti canai has made customers from as far as Kuala Lumpur, Johor and Terengganu flock to his stall.
There were even visitors from Brunei who came after reading online about his coloured roti canai!
He added colour to the dough to create blue, pink, green, yellow that come in various flavours - vanilla, strawberry, pandan, banana and chocolate.
The publicity has been good for the roti canai seller. His buisness has picked up with between 700 and 800 roti canai being sold during weekends and public holidays.
Another food stall owner who has been seeing brisk business is the nasi lemak seller in Kota Baru who dons a Spider-man costume when serving his customers.
There is no doubt that his innovative and creative business strategy is bringing him profits.The Spider-man costume was bought on-line from China for RM500.
He was ridiculed in the beginning for his outrageous idea, but sales of close to 500 nasi lemak packets being sold each day, he is now having the last laugh all the way to the bank.
The tough times have forced the best out of people. As the saying goes “when the going gets tough, the tough get going”.
Hopefully entrepreneurial skills will be incorporated into the curriculum of all other subjects, so that children will be resilient, innovative, creative, industrious, independent and confident.
To build the next generation of leaders, an entrepreneurial mindset is but a necessity.
As British buisnessman and philanthropist Richard Branson says: “ You do not learn to walk by following rules, you learn by doing, and by falling over.”
SAMUEL YESUIAH
Seremban
