11th Annual 21st Century Learning Conference

HKJC CoCoon STEP: Empowering students through entrepreneurship education
How can schools work with businesses and NPOs to create new ways for students to learn about entrepreneurship?  (Renee Boey)

Can entrepreneurship be taught? The HK Jockey Club CoCoon STEP Program (Student Training in Entrepreneurship Program) now runs in 34 schools and has reached over 5,500 students in Hong Kong secondary schools. This presentation will highlight key elements in designing a successful entrepreneurship program and providing real-world opportunities for students to contribute.

‘You know what, this is kind of helping me’: Students’ experiences of a Hong Kong school-based mentoring programme- Mark Harrison/Lianne Lim - Victoria Shanghai Academy

This is a presentation of research conducted into the effectiveness of a school-based mentoring programme in a Hong Kong secondary school.

Interview data were analyzed thematically and two themes developed: ‘experiencing mentoring’ and ‘experiencing the mentor.’ The mentees, although initially skeptical about mentoring, were surprised by its helpfulness.

Through the development of an informal and collaborative relationship, in which students experienced their mentor as a trustworthy, mature and objective adult, students found an important source of emotional support and practical help which benefited their academic work. Students’ experience was influenced by their mentors’ role in the school, length of service and gender match, and cultural factors may impact the experience of mentoring.

School-based mentoring programmes in a Hong Kong context have the potential to offer emotional and academic support to students.

Our Voice - Nooraine Fazal /Divya   Balagopal- Inventure Academy Bangalore

We will be presenting on Inventure Academy’s Our Voice initiative, a platform for our students to learn how they express their voices/have their say, both in the present and the future world they will inherit.

We started with Our Safety Our Voice (OSOV) in 2014. After a spate of child abuse cases that year, Inventure students reached out to children across socioeconomic groups to hear children’s voices on what safety meant for them. More than 1000 children, across 18 educational institutions and NGO’s participated in the survey we conducted. The findings of the survey were very powerful and compelling and formed the backbone for the Student Charter that the Inventure Academy Charter Committee submitted to the Child Protection Policy drafting committee appointed by the Government of Karnataka. The Government of Karnataka has taken cognizance of the Charter and the recommendations we made have been included in the Child Protection Policy that has been officially proposed for the State.

The following year, in mid 2015, Inventure in partnership with the American India Foundation (AIF) (http://aif.org/about/about-aif/) organized for Indian and American High School students to study the impact of urban development on water. As part of this, Inventure organized a two day Lake Conservation program (Our Lakes Our Voice - OLOV) with the now infamous Varthur Lake (300 acre lake close to our school) as a case study. Students who participated in the case study were disturbed by what they learnt and some of them chose to continue work in the field. The 2015-’16 student coordinator for the OLOV group, Sahithi Pingali, won awards in the Intel International Science & Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF) and The International Sustainable World Engineering Energy Environment Project (ISWEEEP) science fairs.