VOL-8 Test 9 Passage 3 — IELTS Reading Practice

A. The Teen Entrepreneurs Competition (TEC) is an enterprise education programme developed by the Business Studies Division at the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIED) - the major training body for school teachers in Hong Kong. It has the following key objectives: to enable secondary school business students to integrate their conceptual learning with real business practices; to promote a collaborative approach to enterprise education; and to build up formal links between HKIEd, schools and entrepreneurs.

A. The Teen Entrepreneurs Competition (TEC) is an enterprise education programme developed by the Business Studies Division at the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIED) - the major training body for school teachers in Hong Kong. It has the following key objectives: to enable secondary school business students to integrate their conceptual learning with real business practices; to promote a collaborative approach to enterprise education; and to build up formal links between HKIEd, schools and entrepreneurs.

B. Among the various enterprise programmes in Hong Kong, TEC is unique as it is principally organised by pre-service teachers on their B.Ed course. At the beginning of the academic year, these pre-service teachers form an executive committee. They are advised by tutors in the Business Studies Division and some of them are selected to act as TEC instructors. These instructors attend a series of training sessions that cover the concepts of entrepreneurship and practical skills for business start-ups. They are then sent to the schools to co-work with teachers and meet the competition teams.

C. Over a three-month period, the teams are required to brainstorm an innovative business start-up that is suitable for the Chinese New Year. They then draft a business proposal, turn this into a real business by sourcing or creating their products, and set up a market stall at the HKIEd campus. The teams' business ideas and sales performance are assessed by an adjudicating panel that is made up of entrepreneurs, school principals, teachers, students and customers.

D. TEC has run annually for three years and has received favourable responses from both the education and local communities. In a recent evaluation survey, most participants ranked themselves in the satisfactory performance category and considered they had gained practical skills to run a small business. A typical response was: 'I understand enterprise better and have developed a good team spint. Moreover, positive views were obtained from some participants despite the fact that they had not had a good experience. For example, one participant reflected: 'I initially received a lot of criticism and even thought about giving up. However, I eventually learned to work in a systematic way."

E. The positive evaluation outcomes came not only from participants but from other stakeholders as well. The adjudicators commented that most of the business plans demonstrated an adequate understanding and application of entrepreneurship in the context of seasonal sales. In addition, the school teachers stated that TEC was a good platform in that it enabled their students to engage in business. They felt the zero drop-out rate strongly supported their views on the promising future of TEC.

F. The positive post-activity evaluations were indications of the programme's success, but an assessment of how well TEC met its objectives will clarify how sustainable it is as an enterprise education programme. One objective was to provide participant with the opportunity to integrate conceptual learning with real business situations. The research studies that were carried out indicated that the school students taking part in TEC were able to apply entrepreneurial knowledge gained in their studies to the authentic business situations created by the programme. In fact, participants not only succeeded in doing this, but also increased their overall understanding of business enterprise.