Giving kids real-world taste of business, School of the Nations offers KidsMBA
Being an entrepreneur is not only about starting a business but rather having entrepreneurial skills, which can be taught to kids at any age.
And that is exactly what School of the Nations, one of Guyana’s leading private education providers, has been doing through its ABE Endorsed KidsMBA.
The programme, aimed at children ages 11 to 15, is designed to complement and enhance school education with a real-world taste of the life skills, know-how, and aptitude required to run a business or become an entrepreneur.
The KidsMBA opens up the concept of self-employment and business management to kids from all walks of life. It introduces the concept of sustainability as part of the future business model and is also an introduction to future business studies.
Speaking with MTV News Update, the Principal of the School’s Primary Division, Mischka White-Griffith, explained that as part of the programme, the kids need to come up with a business plan, which is then implemented.
“We have quite a few children who actually have businesses operating, and they are still in school,” the Principal revealed.
According to White-Griffith, too often, we view our children as passive and unable to do anything, but this programme helps them maximise their full potential.
“This is the opportunity for them within the safety of their age and everything else to experiment with an idea in terms of having that feeling of success but most importantly, to have that feeling of failure and to understand that if you are going to go into business, failure will happen, but you have to learn from it.”
White-Griffith shared that two of her children have completed the programme, and apart from creating a business, the kids are opened up to “responsibility.”
“It gave them that element of responsibility like in the last batch when we were looking at costing, and we were looking at the material cost, and I introduced the concept of time and how much of their time they have been investing in the product and that time has a value.”
She continued, “It is very transformational, and that is what we want our children to understand. You can dream big, yes, but in order to achieve the dream, it comes at a cost, and time is important,” White-Griffith posited.
To this end, the school’s Principal urged parents to “Invest! It is the best decision you can ever make for your child because they are going to grow beyond our imagination.”
The programme covers areas including Business Ideas and Unique Selling Proposition (USP), Business Name and Logo, Business Plan, and Financials, among others.
Forbes Magazine has identified the ABE Endorsed KidsMBA as one of the world’s leading children’s entrepreneurship programmes.
