Delhi Deputy Chief Minister and Education Minister Manish Sisodia on Friday directed the Education Department to roll out a pilot project related to entrepreneurship curriculum for classes IX-XII in government schools from April next year.

Sisodia said he had directed that basic training be conducted during summer vacation and subsequently the entrepreneurship curriculum in all schools for classes 9 to 12 be launched in the first week of July 2019.

The curriculum will be based on a four-fold framework: Inspire through stories and case studies of entrepreneurial journeys; educate through self-designed micro-research; involve through local community; and facilitate by supporting the task of developing ideas into projects.

Through this curriculum an effort would be to raise students’ aspirations and build a mindset for problem-solving and decision-making among children. Emphasis would be laid on personality development, communication, planning and other such matters, he claimed.

Sisodia said, “unemployment is one of the biggest problems being faced by our country. Every time when there is some job vacancy, even if of the fourth grade, we see thousands of MBAs, engineers, even PhDs, apply for the post.”

He said, “I personally see this as a problem interlinked with education and not merely as an unemployment problem.”

Sisodia raised a question: “Where are the job providers?”

He said he had seen entrepreneurship programmes being carried out at various levels at some universities and schools, but they were treating entrepreneurship as a skill and not as a mindset. “That is why despite so many programmes at various levels, the country has not been able to produce individuals with an entrepreneurship mindset who will ultimately become job providers in society,” Sisodia said, adding that this was a big lacuna.

“If we can produce large-scale entrepreneurs in our country, then they will not only solve the problem of unemployment but also will help the economy grow very fast,” the Deputy Chief Minister pointed out.

Therefore, Sisodia said, to take the reforms initiated in the schools of Delhi over the last four years to the next level, “we would like to introduce the entrepreneurship curriculum for the students of classes 9 to 12 from the beginning of the next academic year.”