ILOILO CITY—As more young entrepreneurs start their own businesses, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) member-economies have been urged to partner with schools in organizing business forums and workshops that would boost the youth’s entrepreneurship skills.
In a forum here on Monday, Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Region 6 Officer in Charge Rebecca Rascon said such partnership in the province has “awakened” the creativity of young people. “Every province has its own style or approach in promoting entrepreneurship among young people. In other provinces, we…conduct a business plan competition [among the students],” she said.
Aside from this, the DTI also conducts entrepreneurship workshops among “mothers and daughters, fathers and sons” on how to negotiate with buyers and how to price one’s product correctly, Rascon said. “In most of the cases, the prices of products are not competitive,” she said. At the same time, a parallel track has been institutionalized in the government’s K to 12 Program.
The program, which increased basic education by four years, introduces entrepreneurship to students as early as in junior and senior high school, Trade Undersecretary Zenaida Maglaya said.
She said that on their seventh grade, students’ business interest and skills will be assessed. Maglaya emphasized the importance of the early introduction of entrepreneurship among young people, as this would give them a bigger picture of what they would want to pursue in the future.
She said some schools in the country hold competitions on innovations and starting a business among their students, giving them the opportunity to actually run a business, even while they are still in school.
The director of the DTI’s Bureau of Domestic Trade Promotion, Rhodora Leano, has observed an increasing trend of young people in Apec economies going into innovative business.
This trend helps boost inclusive growth, she said during a recent forum.
Leano noted that her office receives many applications for business registration from young budding entrepreneurs with promising, unique and innovative ideas. In the past, young people gauged their success based on their ability to find employment in multinational corporations, said Leano, who is also in charge of promoting and marketing the products of the country’s small and medium enterprises.
But now, more people who are applying for business registration are younger, she said.