07/08/2021
40 Entrepreneurs admitted to the Ultimate Entrepreneur Course
Every year, students graduate from university with certificates from courses that have little or no practical relevance to the needs of our economy. At best students are prepared with mind sets on angel employers to provide them with jobs- rather than how to be job creators.
Life-By-Design has admitted 40 entrepreneurs for a six-month course as part of the Skills Development Fund (SDF) project funded by the Government of Sierra Leone and the World Bank. Three short courses will be held over a period of six (6) months to achieve this goal and deliver high quality personal and business development services. The offering covers professional short courses on Entrepreneurship, Sales & Marketing, and Customer Experience Management. A two-day orientation program was organised for the selected candidates on 3rd and 4th August, 2021.
The curriculum design is leaner-centred and project-based skills development to nurture high impact entrepreneurial leaders; with enhanced ability to identify and create business opportunities while solving problems in their communities. The courses are delivered using Skills-over-theory (SOT) approach to hone students with skills they need to become relevant and valuable to the marketplace
The SDF is a challenge fund that seeks to provide support to the labour market with relevant skills for youth (18-35 yrs.) and to upskill Sierra Leonean youths with contemporary entrepreneurial leadership skills that drive employability, job creation and self-employment. LBD is part of the 63 Grantees who are working to achieve the project objectives of the SDF. The LBD has targeted to train 200 people and these are the first set of trainees they have, to ensure that the curriculum they have developed meets the demands of the market and be sent to the NCTVA as they are involved and currently have a Consultant that is working with them towards developing a competency-based curriculum.
The aim of the Skills Development Fund is to support technical and vocational education towards the production of growth oriented male and female owned small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), stimulate the market for green products and services through the expansion of access to relevant TVET skills in Sierra Leone. The project is being implemented in partnership with the Ministry of Technical & Higher Education; Ministry of Finance, the National Council for Technical, Vocational and Other Academic Awards (NCTVA), Sierra Leone Employers' Federation and the Sierra Leone Labour Congress, Private Sector and other Business Organizations, Non-Governmental Organizations and SMEs.
The SDF project is designed with the belief that harnessing the untapped potential of young people is the key to unlocking Sierra Leone’s human capital development and overall economic growth. The project, therefore, seeks to upskill Sierra Leonean youths with contemporary entrepreneurial leadership skills that drive employability, efficiency, job creation, and self-employment. This project also seeks to increase access to demand-led skills training and build the foundations for a demand-led skills development system in Sierra Leone.
Sallieu Barrie, the SDF Grant Specialist at the Skills Development Fund Secretariat in the Ministry of Tertiary and Higher Education said that the process in getting them to this level was a competitive one but that they are concerned with the female participation as there were only 9 women during the session.
The project he stressed is particular about women empowerment and that he said was emphasized during the last implementation support mission conducted by World Bank, even though the Deputy Minister of Finance was boasting of 48 percent women participation nationwide the World Bank Team said it is still not good enough as they need to up the numbers with more female participation.
