Bid to promote entrepreneurial skills in schools

A total of 21 teachers from different parts of the country completed a 10-day entrepreneurship training organised by the School Entrepreneurship Network (SEN), an organisation that supports entrepreneurship development in high schools.The training ended last week with a graduation ceremony at ALARM Training Centre in Kagugu, Kigali, with award of certificates.The course was supported by Rwanda Business Development Centre and Regent University (US).The trainees said they acquired skills to start business and now understand how easily they can access loans from their cooperative, Umwalimu SACCO.The teachers said they were ready to pass on the skills acquired during the training to their students when schools reopen in the New Year.One of the trainees, Stanley Muzungu, from Gahima Agape Secondary School in Ngoma District, said he had already started a technical school in his sector and was going to put the skills and ideas he learnt in the training into practice.“We have to be job makers rather than being jobseekers, which is very possible if you have got good business ideas and skills,” he said.The Chief Executive Officer of Rwanda Business Development Centre, Jean Bosco Iyacu, told Education Times that the training was designed to help teachers, so that they can pass on quality skills to students since entrepreneurship is a new subject in local schools.“Capital is not the main issue, the most important thing is to have a business idea and skills to implement it” he said.“This is intended to provide solutions to those who are often faced with challenges when it comes to starting up, running and ensuring that a business is profitable,” he added.The entrepreneurs expressed delight at acquiring technical and management skills that would benefit them in the future.Robert Assimwe, from Umwalimu Sacco (a teachers savings and credit cooperative), said: “It is your cooperative and it is ready to help and support those with good business ideas as far as capital is concerned.”