Entrepreneurship Education Program

Program Synopsis

Initiated in February 2007, the Entrepreneurship Education Programme (EEP) was the first formalized structured programme introduced by the Centre for Innovation and Enterprise (CIE), Republic Polytechnic (RP). This programme was initiated as part of the Ministry of Education’s (MOE) focus on innovation and enterprise as well as the drive towards “Teach Less and Learn More” initiative.

This programme seeks to fulfill 2 key objectives of promoting entrepreneurship among the youths as well as strengthening RP’s positioning of being the first educational institution that engages secondary school students in real-life authentic learning via the pushcart retail platform.  

Two key features differentiate our EEP program from the rest of the other programs available in the market. One would be the adoption of the pushcart retail platform. This was selected as the key experiential learning platform given its manageable rent and low overheads providing the ideal learning great learning platform for students without any entrepreneurial experience. Second, would be the adoption of RP’s Problem Based Learning (PBL) Pedagogy in our curriculum. Through this unique pedagogy, EEP participants will learn key entrepreneurial concepts through problems related to the skills required for start-up. 

As seen in Diagram 1 below, this 2 day programme introduces participants to topics such as Business Idea Generation and Evaluation, Marketing as well as Financing that are key fundamental skills for an entrepreneur. To date, more than 1,500 students from 52 Secondary Schools have since participated in our programme.

Diagram 1: Programme Structure

At the end of their EEP journey, participants are engaged in a platform to showcase and pit their entrepreneurial skill sets against one another in a nationwide entrepreneurship competition. Held in conjunction with Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) at the end of each year, the National Pushcart Challenge seeks to showcase the creativity and innovation of each school’s product ideas as well as to excite the youths in entrepreneurial learning.

Below are key quotes received from schools on the programme.

”I enjoy the EEP lesson because we get to discuss the business idea and my friends have many creative ideas.” – Student from Westwood Secondary School

“We learnt the application of actual marketing techniques such as advertising and display of the merchandise.” -  Student from Pioneer Secondary School