Zambian school wins global entrepreneurship competition

Extreme poverty remains a challenge at international level and one that traditional education often struggles to solve. Another pressing challenge in the context of global education is solving the youth unemployment crisis, with 75 million people aged 16 to 24 currently unemployed.

The School Enterprise Challenge was designed as a way of transforming large numbers of young people from all over the world from job seekers into job creators. The programme requires young people to establish a socially responsible, yet profitable, business at their school. This offers a platform for providing hands-on relevant education to students, at the same time as generating extra income for the school.

In 2015, more than 2900 schools from over 100 countries benefited from participating in the School Enterprise Challenge. Those that reached business implementation stage generated an average income of $680 in their first four months of operation.

“We are delighted to be organising the School Enterprise Challenge for the sixth year running. With more countries and schools getting involved, the competition will be even bigger and better and more young people will be equipped with the skills needed to enter the business world,” says Nik Kafka, CEO of Teach A Man To Fish.

Some of the other school businesses included a bakery using homegrown products in Ukraine and a start-up in Scotland that needed no start-up capital and had very low direct costs later on. Other African winners at different stages included schools from Tanzania, South Africa, Uganda, Mauritius and Rwanda.

The 2016 programme is now open for schools around the world to register their interest and official registration for the 2016 School Enterprise Challenge opens on 14 March. Registration is free and open to all schools. For more information, go to www.schoolenterprisechallenge.org.