Entrepreneurship
Theme: Entrepreneurship
Cross-cutting themes covered: Enterprise and Education
Name of project: (V)MBO Business School
City: Amsterdam
What is it? (V)MBO Business School works to promote entrepreneurship among 14 and 15 year old school pupils, by giving them the opportunity to develop ‘learning companies’, producing, promoting and selling products during a six week period in and around their school.
Who is it? (V)MBO Business School is supported by MKB Amsterdam (an association of Amsterdam SMEs), the local authority and the Ministry of Education Business mentors from banks, the Chamber of Commerce, older students and enterprise specialists also get involved in the project
Where is it? The schools in which the project operates tend to be located in deprived urban areas, with high unemployment rates and low skills levels. Many of the young people involved in the project are at risk of social exclusion.
Who funds it? City of Amsterdam Ministry of Education
How does it work? Setting up mini-companies: (V)MBO Business School promotes entrepreneurship among young people, giving them an opportunity to set up their own companies, through which they learn about administration, marketing, and teamwork. Three or four afternoons per week for six or seven weeks in a row are put aside for this project. The young people work in groups of four to produce, promote and sell their own products. If they make a profit, they are allowed to keep it for themselves. This greatly motivates the young people to make their enterprises a success.
Developing presentation skills: Throughout the project, the young people are given the opportunity to present themselves and their company four times. After one week, they must present their business idea to their fellow (V)MBO-students; after two weeks, in order to get a loan, they must present their business plan to a bank representative; after three weeks, they give a presentation at the Chamber of Commerce; finally, at the end of the project, they present to their parents and other invitees. Both during and after the project, students must give continual feedback to teachers on their own performance, as well as on the performance of teachers, directors and business mentors.
Students, part-time directors, teachers and business mentors communicate via an Electronic Learning Environment (ELE) system. The ELE system, on which students must keep updated business portfolios, has been specially developed for the (V)MBO Business School programme. Using the system, supervisors can monitor the progress of young people at a distance.
Anything else? Mentoring opportunities: Older students also co-operate in the programme, working as part-time directors for the student companies. In addition, representatives of banks (such as ABN AMRO, ING and Rabobank) provide business mentors who support the student companies for one day a week during the programme. Amsterdam Chamber of Commerce organises an entrepreneurship workshop for participating students, and extracurricular visits are organised to companies and other organisations.
What are the results? By setting up a business, young people learn many new technical and soft skills, from how to set up and market a business to how to present themselves effectively in an interview.
Is it successful? The programme was piloted four times before being implemented to involve a greater number of students and schools. So far, six waves of the (V)MBO Business School programme have been carried out.
Is the model transferable? The (V)MBO Business School model is highly transferable to other schools, cities and countries. Projects require co-operation between schools, local authorities and business partners, which can be challenging, but is rarely impossible.
People working in the private and community sectors are often happy to engage with young people as business mentors and role models. It is often best to aim high, asking the bank manager directly for support in your project, rather than bank employees.
Building on local competitive advantages? Projects work best when they are driven by motivated teachers within schools, ‘change agents’ (rather than public authorities imposing the model on schools from above). Indeed, the (V)MBO project has been driven by the ambition of local teachers to motivate their students.
What are the barriers to transferability? Schools must be flexible in order to fit the programme into the curriculum, as has been the case in Amsterdam. The model could meet resistance by school teachers in other localities and regions where it is felt that the school curriculum is already overcrowded.
