文档介绍：Self-Sufficient Schools: Fostering Entrepreneurship to Finance Sustainable Education
Nik Kafka & Jim Stephenson
Abstract
The Millennium Development Goals rightly focus on the need for Universal Primary Education. However, as governments across the Asian Region direct their funding priorities towards primary education, where will the finance for post-primary and skills-based e from?
Meanwhile with labor markets in low-e developing countries typically characterized by a lack of formal sector jobs, self-employment remains an important means of earning a living. How can traditional secondary and vocational education institutions better prepare their students with the entrepreneurial skills needed to eed in this context?
Self-Sufficient Schools provide a possible answer to both questions. This innovative approach, combining entrepreneurship and vocational education, not only increases the relevancy of learning, but through school-based businesses provides both a training ground for students and a means of finance for the school.
This paper seeks i) to outline in further detail the Self-Sufficient School concept, ii) to draw together lessons learned from institutions currently using this approach, notably in the field of agricultural education, iii) to chart a path forward for this methodology, and finally iv) to suggest how its adoption might help plug the finance gap which currently limits the availability of sustainable post-primary education across Asia.
Introduction
A worthy investment lacking finance
The World Development Report 2007 focuses on education, and justifies this in part based on demographic evidence which reveals that many developing countries are now in, or soon to enter a period of peak youth population (WB, 2006). The report argues that there are substantial returns to investment in human capital formation, and that such interventions are most effective during childhood and adolescence. We are entering a window of increased opportunity - deve