Higher Learning Institutions Continue to Produce Entrepreneurial Minded Students
Source from: Borneo Bulletin
IN ENCOURAGING locals to become enterprising individuals, students in Brunei Darussalam have been exposed and instilled with the element of entrepreneurship in various stages in their studies.
YB Pehin Orang Kaya Indera Pahlawan Dato Seri Setia Awang Haji Suyoi bin Haji Osman, Minister of Education, outlined many initiatives carried out by numerous higher education institutions under the Ministry of Education in promoting interest for entrepreneurship in response to a query by YB Haji Tahamit bin Haji Nudin, Penghulu of Mukim Gadong ‘A’ at the 13th Legislative Council session yesterday.
In the secondary level, the minister explained, Mathematics, English Language, Business, Art and Technology are subjects that are already linked to the knowledge of doing business. For the Institute of Brunei Technical Education (IBTE), he highlighted, “Among the courses that are related to entrepreneurship offered in business campus are HNTec in Business and Finance and NTec in Business Administration while in Politeknik Brunei, each student enrolled in the Level 5 Diploma programme must attend the entrepreneurship module in their first year of studies.”
Meanwhile, Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD), through its third strategic plan of Foster Innovative Teaching and Learning with a Global Perspective’, outlined the ninth key performance indicator to further expand the entrepreneurship programme and curriculum by 2020.
“UBD’s entrepreneurships village, which is under the National Entrepreneurship Agenda (NEA) and is the first entrepreneurship flagship agenda in Brunei Darussalam, under the Ministry of Education introduced since April 2014 aims to create a platform to groom an entrepreneurship mindset among the local community,” he said. “To create an eco-system that generates ideas and programmes ran by NEA is targeting three levels namely primary to secondary and form sixth centre level, high education level and community level.”
Meanwhile, Universiti Islam Sultan Sharif Ali (UNISSA) instils the interest of entrepreneurship by providing a cafeteria area called UNISSA Café managed by students.
The minister said Universiti Teknologi Brunei (UTB) has taken a number of steps in its programme to produce graduates equipped with the entrepreneurship mentality ready to take risks and be innovative as well as prepare to work in the private sector compared to a government job and the global job market.
Among the steps taken are offering relevant programmes, the involvement of relevant stakeholders and employers in the design of the programme, as well as offering programmes based on the demand of the job market.