24 Feb 2014

Parents have been advised to encourage their children to take advantage of the Junior Achievement Botswana (JAB) programme.

In an interview during the JAB innovation camp in Serowe, JAB programmes manager, Ms Onthatile Modise said for students to excel, parents should be part of their education and guide them accordingly.

Ms Modise said some parents felt that JAB was a waste of time but rather it built students to cope well with the outside world when they finished school.

She said it also gave students a sense of responsibility at a young age and thus equipping students to be able distinguish between what was right and wrong.

She explained that JAB empowered young people to succeed in the world of work through dynamic entrepreneurship, work readiness and financial literacy education programme. JAB, she said thereby, cultivated and energised the spirit of enterprise and self-reliance.

Ms Modise said the main purpose was to educate and inspire young people to value business and market economics to improve the quality of their lives, their families and the nation as a whole.

However, she said these camps are annual, and since they started the programme a lot of students have shown interest because each year students come in large numbers.

She noted that the camp was made by students from Serowe, Palapye, Mahalapye, Boteti and Maun regions, and students where competing in finding a solution to the challenges they are presented with. The camp was in preparation of the JAB nationals to be held in Palapye on March 8.

For his part, JAB regional chairperson Palapye sub region, Mr Modiri Mosiko said these camps helped students to develop their interpersonal and problem solving skills.

Mr Mosiko said JAB camps are the perfect way to educate and motivate students about how to encourage entrepreneurship in the classroom.

He noted that these camp are highly effective for steering young people towards business ideas of a more scientific and technological nature, something which is not usually achieved in a traditional classroom context.

He explained that at the end of these camps students are also equipped with the possibility to foster an understanding of the world of work and spirit of entrepreneurship through principle of learning by doing. ENDS