Entrepreneurship education - Know about business

The program will be aimed at stimulating growth and diversity within the SME sector. One of The Small Micro Enterprise Promotion Service-SMEPS intervention includes facilitating market linkages between educational establishments and the labour market. This includes promoting entrepreneurial education and training in Yemeni schools, colleges and universities. The ILO developed the Know About Business (KAB), which is a set of training materials for entrepreneurship education. The KAB training concept draws on ILO’s successful experience in the field where it is introduced in more then 20 countries. The KAB package is intended to fill the important pre-start gap with information that is missing to develop entrepreneurial skills and prepare students and trainees not only to establish their own businesses at some point in the future, but also to work productively in SMEs. In designing the KAB materials, enterprise has been defined broadly to cover any undertaking or project that involves organization of productive factors. Accordingly, an entrepreneur is this context is someone who sets up and runs such a project or undertaking. The KAB training methodology develops among young people entrepreneurial competencies and particular knowledge needed for self-employment and creation of micro and small enterprises. The immediate objectives of the KAB training concept are to: • Create awareness of enterprise and self-employment as a career option for trainees. • Develop positive attitudes towards enterprise and self-employment. • Provide knowledge and practice of the required attributes and challenges for starting and operating a successful enterprise. • Prepare trainees to work productively in SMEs During the last ILO mission to Yemen, the presentations and discussions on KAB with representatives from the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Technical Education and Vocational Training and the University of Science and Technology as well as experts from curricula development departments and officials from community colleges, secondary schools and technical institutes led to the following: • Decision to pilot test the KAB in the next academic year • 5 Community colleges will take part in this test • 61 technical training centers and institutes will pilot test the KAB programme • Secondary education schools, 3 from Sana’a and 3 from Aden will take part in the pilot test • The University of Science and Technology also decided to introduce KAB in its curricula. It is important to note that the mission was unable to meet with representatives of the Ministry of Higher Education due to time constraints. It was agreed that SMEPS will make a presentation of the KAB programme to the Ministry and discuss their possible interest in the pilot test of KAB in public universities.

Project symbol

YEM/08/01/SFD

Admin unit

RO-Arab States/DWT-Beirut

Start date

01/08/2008

End date

31/12/2015

Total allocation

220596

Total expenditure

Status

Closed

220596

Development Partners

Social Fund for Development, Yemen

Country/Countries

Yemen

Outcomes

Promoting sustainable enterprises