Dr Yap visiting a booth at the Siswapreneur Showcase 2017. — Bernama
THE Higher Education Ministry targets that by 2020, 15% of students will venture into entrepreneurship while they are still pursuing studies at institutions of higher education, with five percent of them having the primary goal of becoming entrepreneurs upon graduating.
Deputy Higher Education Minister Datuk Dr Mary Yap Kain Ching said over 60% of students in higher education institutions were actively involved in entrepreneur-ship activities and programmes and three percent had become entrepreneurs while pursuing their tertiary education.
“We are referring to the framework where we want our students not to be job seekers but to be job creators,” she told reporters after launching the Siswapreneur Showcase 2017 programme last Monday.
Dr Yap said the entrepreneurship programmes in higher education institutions under the Entrepreneurship Action Plan 2016-2020, were carried out with the concept of “Learn and Earn” with an opportunity to earn personal income while studying.
She said the Siswapreneur Showcase programme, which is the first in its series, for example, was among the ministry’s initiatives to expose the students to the real world of entrepreneurship so that they would be prepared to put their entrepreneurial knowledge and skills into practice.
The programme, which involves over 50 students-cum-entrepreneurs from several institutions, including Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Universiti Putra Malaysia and Tanjong Karang Community College, would be held in a series, with the next one to be held in Kuala Lumpur in June. — Bernama
