British Council organised a Higher Education Policy Dialogue on the theme ‘the Entrepreneurial University’ from 27 to 29 March 2008 in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The policy dialogue was funded under the UK Prime Minister’s Initiative (PMI2) for International Education and was facilitated by a delegation representing 8 UK universities and their centres of entrepreneurship education, headed by Professor Allan Gibb, Academic Advisor to the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship (NCGE) in the UK.
The Sri Lankan participation was mainly by vice chancellors and senior academic staff from the state universities. The first day of the policy dialogue was graced by Hon. Minister of Higher Education, Sri Lanka and the rest was attended throughout by the high ranking officials from University Grants Commission (UGC).
The event unfolded with interactive presentations delivered by the UK specialists as well as several Sri Lankan speakers amidst focused discussions. The UK presenters addressed various topics under the main theme and shared their experiences faced during planning and implementation of entrepreneurship education within their universities.
The following key actions were recommended during the policy dialogue:
British Council then carried out scoping visits to selected Sri Lankan universities during the period of April – July 08 in order to understand how best the above actions should be executed. The general opinion was that there needs to be a nationwide awareness building programme about entrepreneurship education and the importance of graduate entrepreneurship aimed at the university staff and students with the participation of industry. The reason for this approach was that the whole university community needs to understand the concept of ‘the entrepreneurial university’ in order to successfully implement entrepreneurship education development strategies. It was further suggested that such a programme needs to have high level Government endorsement.
PLANNING
British Council Sri Lanka prepared a concept paper proposing a National Entrepreneurship Week (NEW) and a series of activities (below) covering most of the above action points. It was first thought that this week should coincide with the Global Entrepreneurship Week (3rd week of November) but it was discovered that the designated organisers for GEW in Sri Lanka mainly focused on school level entrepreneurship rather than graduate entrepreneurship. Furthermore it was anticipated that most of the UK universities would be busy engaging in activities during GEW thus would not be able to attend NEW 08 in Sri Lanka. Therefore it was decided that the following week (4th week of November) should be declared as the National Entrepreneurship Week in Sri Lanka. The concept paper was then presented to the Minister of Higher Education, Chairman of UGC and Sri Lankan university vice chancellors as well as the UK university representatives that facilitated the policy dialogue. The concept was approved for initiation by all parties. NEW 08 project plan was prepared by end of July and was approved for execution by British Council colleagues in the UK.
The following are the events planned for NEW 08:
The preliminary promotional material was prepared during the period of August and was circulated amongst the primary stakeholders.
NEW 08 OBJECTIVES
To develop nationwide awareness about graduate entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education
PARTNERSHIP FUNDING
It was decided to try and secure partnership funding through industry sponsorship. Although the plan was to raise 50& of the total budgeted cost only 25% of the cost was raised due to several reasons such as the global and local economic collapse experienced during this period, the project timeline falling towards the end of the financial year of most local companies, lack of awareness about the importance of graduate entrepreneurship amongst the corporate community insufficient lead time to raise funds (the project was initiated only in September). However it is worth mentioning that there was significant in-kind contribution from the partner organisations.
(Please refer to the partnership funding under Actual Expenditure)
STRATEGY
The project team consisted of only one project manager (Grade G) and one temporary staff member (Grade J, full time). Although several other personnel from other departments were involved in the project their support was limited given their own responsibilities and not being present in Sri Lanka during most part of the project. This was anticipated early in the project thus it was decided to secure partnerships with external parties to support NEW 08 with the planned activities. This strategy was also intended to help raise funds towards the cost of the project.
Following are the partnership categories for NEW 08:
Government Partners
GOVERNMENT PARTNERS
NEW 08 secured partnerships with the ministries of Higher Education, Vocational and Technical Training and Skills Development as well as the University Grants Commission. Their responsibilities included endorsement of NEW 08, Co-ordination between ministerial delegates, organising ministerial participation and providing advice and guidance. We were also actively supported by the Minister of Education who attended the inauguration of NEW 08.
UK UNIVERSITY PARTNERS (KNOWLEDGE PARTNERS)
An Expression of Interest was issued in the UK for NEW 08 Knowledge Partners (See Appendix A). All universities were informed about this opportunity via e-Mail and through the British Council website. 8 applications were submitted by the due date and 5 universities were selected based on the criteria explained in the EOI. One presenter from each university was funded by the British Council to take part in NEW 08. One of the main criteria for selection was for each university to sponsor at least one student (undergraduate) to take part in NEW 08. This was done mainly to fulfil the ‘student exchange’ action point as well as to adhere to the PMI2 partnership criteria of ‘match-funding’. A sixth knowledge partner was selected after their application was submitted after the deadline.
The 6 knowledge partners for NEW 08 were:
The responsibilities of the knowledge partners also included support in developing the programmes for the conference and seminars/workshops, visits to Sri Lankan universities to explore partnership opportunities and hosting an exhibition stall at the enterprise education exhibition. Each presenter was required to prepare a background paper for their respective presentation at the National Conference.
SRI LANKAN UNIVERSITY PARTNERS
They were the most important primary stakeholders of NEW 08 as the entire programme was in effect organised for their benefit. NEW 08 was attended by the staff and students from the following 14 (out of a total of 15) Sri Lankan universities:
*University of Jaffna did not attend due to security reasons with regard to travelling.
The vice chancellors of the Sri Lankan universities were the main contact points for NEW 08 and were kept informed of the developments of NEW 08 continuously. The universities were responsible for organising the staff and students to take part in the various programmes of NEW 08. For example the student competitors for IDEATORS were selected from a list of students nominated by the vice chancellors from each university. The staff and students who participated in the conference and seminars/workshop respectively were also nominated by the vice chancellors.
STRATEGIC AND COMPETITION PARTNERS
There were 5 partnership slots available under this category and their main role was to facilitate the IDEATORS competitions. The partners were required to be reputable, medium or large-scale enterprises in Sri Lanka.
British Council secured all five partnerships as follows:
Laugfs Holdings*Please refer to the IDEATORS heading.
STRATEGIC AND EXHIBITION PARTNER
The exhibition partner was responsible for organising the Enterprise Education Exhibition in terms of finding stall holders and organising the exhibition proceedings. Aspirations Education (Pvt) Ltd was selected as the Exhibition Partner. The roundtable discussion and action planning was also organised by the strategic and exhibition partner.
CONFERENCE PARTNER
National Institute of Business Management (NIBM) was selected as the conference partner (Please refer to National Conference heading)
SEMINAR PARTNER
Norfolk Foods (Pvt) Ltd was selected as the seminar partner. (Please refer to Seminars and Workshops heading)
ELECTRONIC MEDIA PARTNER AND IDEATORS PRODUCTION PARTNER
ETV a popular English medium television station was selected as the production partner for the reality TV programme, IDEATORS – An Entrepreneurship Competition. They also offered pre-publicity in the form of trailers (See Appendix B) as well as comprehensive coverage to the various programmes of NEW 08 and thus were selected as the electronic media partners for NEW 08.
RADIO PARTNERS
Two radio partners were selected for the two languages namely E FM and Ran FM for English and Sinhala respectively. There was significant publicity for the different activities of NEW 08 in both radio stations prior to NEW 08 (See Appendix B).
PRINT MEDIA PARTNER
Three newspapers were selected as the official print media partners for NEW 08 namely Sunday Observer, Daily News and Silumina (Sinhala Medium). 19 Full-colour, quarter page advertisements and one full page, full-colour supplement was given by ANCL (the print media organisation) free of charge (See Appendix D in the report)
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