ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION Entrepreneurs play an important role in mounting and contributing to the economy of a nation. It is especially in a developing world, where plenty of opportunities for innovations needed to utilize the available resources and initiate entrepreneurial ventures. Commonly we see more entrepreneurs in comparatively more developed areas. Another paradox exists in terms of increasing number of unemployed population, seeking wage earners career and unaware of the wide opportunities for entrepreneurial career. This is, by and large, because of lack of education about entrepreneurship. In this situation entrepreneurship education assumes significance, which plays a pivotal role for imbibing such qualities among young generation to a greater extent. Also this will equip them to build an environment that nourishes innovation, capacity building, skill formation and development of generic competencies, those are considered as the unique persona enforced by young citizens of today. Entrepreneurial qualities are to some extent present in every individual but these can be developed further through properly premeditated education. This kind of education also encourages the development of skills and attributes that employers are looking for such team work, obligation and flexibility. It help to develop in pupils a rational knowledge and understanding of business and working life. Enterprise Enterprise is defined here as the application of creative ideas and innovations to practical situations. This is a generic concept that can be applied across all areas of education. It combines creativity, ideas development and problem solving with expression, communication and practical action. Enterprise skills include taking the initiative, intuitive decision making, making things happen, networking, identifying opportunities, creative problem solving, innovating, strategic thinking, and personal effectiveness. Enterprise education extends beyond knowledge acquisition to a wide range of emotional, intellectual, social, and practical skills. Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship is defined as the application of enterprise skills specifically to creating and growing organizations in order to identify and build on opportunities.
Entrepreneurship Education Entrepreneurship Education is broadly defined as all activities aiming to foster entrepreneurial mindsets, attitudes and skill and covering a range of aspects such as idea generation, start-up, growth and innovation. The goals of entrepreneurship education are mainly to foster entrepreneurial mindsets, skills and behaviors among the students. Entrepreneurship education focuses on the development and application of an enterprising mindset and skills in the specific contexts of setting up a new venture, developing and growing an existing business, or designing an entrepreneurial organization. Entrepreneurship education aims to produce graduates who are capable of identifying opportunities and developing ventures, through setting up new businesses or developing and growing part of an existing venture. It focuses on encouraging students to apply enterprising skills and attributes to a range of different contexts, including new or existing businesses, charities, non-governmental organizations, the public sector, and social enterprises. Objectives of Entrepreneurship Education foster enterprising and entrepreneurial mindsets develop enterprising and entrepreneurial graduates help students develop enterprising and entrepreneurial capabilities that can be applied in a range of context encourage students to consider new venture creation and self-employment as valid graduate career options help students develop an awareness of intellectual assets and enhance their capacity to manage and exploit them enhance graduates' lifelong learning skills, personal development and self-efficacy, allowing them to contribute to economic growth and to society more generally foster an enterprising culture in society including within employment (intrapreneurship) increase the number of graduate start-up businesses.
Education is a strong influencing media that sets values, develops attitudes and motivation and induce people to acquire skills and competencies to achieve the desired goal. The word education can be linked to the word enterprise in three ways: a) Education about enterprise in which the role of education is in raising awareness of enterprise and entrepreneurship as a key change agent in economic process. b) Education through enterprise in which the education process itself can be enhanced by means of pedagogic styles which work in and make use of enterprising situations including the student concerned and real world project driven approaches. c) Education for enterprise, which is aimed at entrepreneurship development and includes induction for existing entrepreneurs as well as for the implementation of new ventures. But the present education system in India has not in a fruitful way to promote independent thinking, creativity, a spirit of innovation and motivation for setting goals, these are the true outcome of entrepreneurship education. The environment and policy however offer diverse opportunities for sustainable self-employment to ensure contribution of workforce in industrial economy. There is thus a need is to inculcate the spirit of enterprise into the psyche of the present generation. Entrepreneurship, self-employment and enterprise creation provide a solution to the crisis of both unemployment and economic growth. Our present activity based curriculum has given ample opportunity for our coming generation to the development of various entrepreneurial skills and competencies through the study of science, commerce, social science etc, that have highly influential in forming the dominant methodologies to some extent. Among such discipline, commerce is considered as a occupational discipline that mainly spotlight on the development of such entrepreneurial skills that imparts entrepreneurial culture, entrepreneurial traits, entrepreneurial propensity etc. which are indispensable to the young generation to enter the world of work and assuming the responsibility of adulthood. The following chart give an idea about essential entrepreneurial traits required/acquired by an individual after successful completion of his/her education, that facilitates individuals or group for creating a new endeavour through the effective utilization of human resources and innovative technologies and thereby ensure the prosperity of our nation.
Communication Convey ideas schematically. Rectifying errors logically. Providing effective feedback mechanism and modification. Team building Assembling and motivating a team. Empowering a team. Build teams sensitively to take challenges and provide opportunities. Goal setting Effectively setting goal. Strategies for achieving goals. Proper utilization of all available resources for achieving goals. Record keeping Systematically maintain records. Creatively using the records. Ability to interpret the books of accounts systematically. E N T R E P R E N E U R I A L T R A I T Creative thinking Analyze the situation divergently. Find creative ways to solve problem. Provide insights through experiences Planning and research Critical judgment and selection. Effective Implementation and verification. Equip with knowledge and skills to apply it in emerging issues and scenarios. Decision making Judging alternative course of action. Fixing the best option with all precautions. Organization Organizing task intelligently. Setting priorities and strategies for achieving them. Cultivate managerial resourcefulness and independent thinking. S
CONSUMER EDUCATION Consumer and economic dealings stretch out at the heart of modern life. The resourceful implementation of the nation s economic organism and the well-being of society depend on consumer know-how. In recent decades, the market has undergone remarkable shift leading to increased deliberation and amalgamation of production, distribution and trading. The variety of products has increased with demands, and it has become more intricate to obtain a needle of the market, due to increased internationalization and fewer trade barriers. Marketing has motivated with changing fashions, customer demand, increasing flow of information, consumer satisfaction, marketing strategies etc. This has placed augmented demands on consumers to be able to assess and take a position on information and claims made for products, including environmental, social, political and ethical aspects. There are a number of aspects, when a contemporary society that stick on the need for consumer knowledge and awareness both theoretical and practical and also the importance of acquiring and developing such knowledge and awareness even at the school level. This is because, many research study proved that children and young people have more money than in subsequent generations, so they are considered an important target group as purchasers of goods and services. This has gone ahead to a change in the role of parents in consumer training. In this context consumer education assumes significant, it enable them to strengthen their ability to act in a society at any exigent situation. Analytical ability, decision making power, problem solving skills and critical awareness strengthen the competency of young consumers to manage their individual finances and to transmit it to the economic developments of his society in a global perspective. Teaching pupils the every day skills of consumer education also equip them to choose lifestyles that are in synchronization with the requirements for sustainable conservation and a sustainable development in general. In consumer education, it is significant to provide the specialized knowledge that leads the coming generation to find one s own way and become able to identify and inculcate social, economical and cultural values and also to attain life coping skills. It is moreover important that the instruction enable the pupils to make use of this specialized knowledge and competencies make one s own to take responsibility and generate accountability for his or her life. It is also to mould the technology enabled coming generation to move forward with necessary knowledge
and insight for becoming a good consumer suited for the complex and multi- faceted dimensions of this society. Schools and educational institutions should play their role in making pupils aware of the influences; they are uncovered with respect to life styles, consumer habits, needs and wants, values, interest and attitudes. Consumer matters should touch in every nooks and corners and became an essential part of every family s daily life. In a whole dimension of how young people are brought up, consumer education will give opportunities for developing cooperation, leadership, motivation and sharing of responsibilities between parents and teachers, between home and school and between home and the society. Consumer education is the preparation of an individual through skills, concepts and understanding that are required for everyday living to achieve maximum satisfaction and utilization of his resources. It is defined as education given to the consumer about various consumer goods and services, covering price, what the consumer can expect, standard trade practice, etc. Consumer Education is concerned with teaching people the skills, attitudes and knowledge required for living in a consumer society. It is a fundamental component of general education, which should support consumers in their attempts to organize their everyday lives in a sustainable way. Many people are not only unconscious of their own consumer behaviour, but do not understand how and to what extent they can influence the economy, the environment and the society through their individual consumer behaviour. Consumer Classroom is about helping teachers to educate young people for the life ahead of them. It is about preparing them with the skills they need so that they consume in a conscious way and understand their role as actors in the economic system creating a better society for us all. Consumer education is very important since it enables consumers to use information acquired in order to make confident and informed purchasing decisions. It also helps the consumers to have a budget for the goods they intend to buy. Importance of Consumer Education Protecting the consumer from the malpractices of the seller and in making judicious purchases.
Helps a person in making proper purchase. It enables the consumer in making right selection. Familiarizes the consumer with the problems which he faces while making purchases. Provides the consumer full information of marketing conditions like various sources of purchasing a particular commodity, from where to get cheap and best goods, the shops providing additional facilities, and to latest products. All these information enables him in taking right decision regarding shopping. Familiarizes the consumer with various standards of standardization and their markings. Familiarizes the consumer about the various acts enacted by the Government from time to time. Helps the consumer in getting maximum satisfaction by proper utilization of his money and leads a better living standard Enable the consumer to understand that individual consumer decisions have a broad social impact and influence on such important things as the overall allocation of resources within the society. To promote value for money, value to people, value to the environment, value to democracy and value to justice. To articulate and understand both our responsibilities as well as our rights as consumers. Consumer education should help in developing the intellectual processes of inquiry and problem-solving, motivate participation and social concern in promoting not only value for money but also value for people as human beings. Consumer education should concentrates on everyday issues and challenges in life that are constantly relevant and significant. Consumer issues can and should be treated from a multiplicity of dimensions in various disciplines such as science, languages, environmental studies, civics, commerce, art, mathematics, economics, politics etc. The reality that consumer education is correlated to such a variety of disciplines makes it likely to take care of broad issues and themes, and facilitates a progressive development throughout his/her education. The pupil s knowledge, skills, values and attitudes related to consumer education can be developed by the engagement of various forms of assignments, problematic situations and thematic approaches adopted by educational institutions and also in the society at different perspectives. At the same
time, it is important that the school arranges inter disciplinary teaching methodologies, discussions, seminars, workshops, projects etc. so that the link between the thematic work related to consumer education in the various discipline is made clear. In this context, it is clearly said that consumer education is not inferior to any one type of education, but it is superior to any other discipline because of the above said inferences and conclusions. ***** KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT The advent of the Internet, the World Wide Web, has made unlimited sources of knowledge available to us all. The ability to manage knowledge is crucial in today s knowledge economy. The creation and diffusion of knowledge have become increasingly important factors in competitiveness. Knowledge management is the name of a concept in which an individual or enterprise consciously and comprehensively gathers, organizes, shares, and analyzes the knowledge in terms of resources, documents, and people skills. Knowledge management (KM) is the collection of processes that govern the creation, dissemination and utilization of knowledge. It refers to a multi-disciplined approach to achieving objectives by making the best use of knowledge. KM focuses on processes such as acquiring, creating and sharing knowledge and the cultural and technical foundations that support them. Knowledge Management involves o Designing and installing techniques and processes to create, protect and use known knowledge o Designing and creating environments and activities to discover and release knowledge that is not known or tacit knowledge o Articulating the purpose and nature of managing knowledge as a resource and embodying it in other initiatives and programmes Elements of Knowledge management o People Refers to cultural and behavioural approach Knowledge is created by individuals The creation and sharing of knowledge can only happen when individuals cooperate willingly o Process Socialization - Sharing tacit knowledge through face-to-face communication or shared experience
Externalization - Developing concepts and models to convert tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge - Enable it to be communicated to others Combination - Contribution of various elements of explicit knowledge to form more complex and systematic explicit knowledge Internalization - Understand explicit knowledge - Closely linked to learning by doing o Technology Refers to net work system Facilitate correction Through ICT explicit knowledge can be captured and disseminated Importance of Knowledge Management Foster innovation by encouraging the free flow of ideas Improve decision making To built better sensitivity to brain drain To react to new opportunities To share the knowledge ******