The Entrepreneurial Mindset curriculum focuses on delivering real-life, engaging experiences that prepare the student for creating value or increasing value in whatever workplace they enter — be it a company, his or her own venture, or family business. These experiences are designed to inculcate entrepreneurial mindsets that enable young students to dream bigger, recognize opportunities, translate them into reality, bounce-back from failures, learn and try again with perseverance and passion. The Entrepreneurship Mindset Curriculum (EMC) is a scalable, path-breaking initiative that intends to tackle the employment problem at its roots. It induces an all-round development of young minds inculcating entrepreneurial and foundational abilities through experiential learning. 

These ENC-powered minds will be sought after by employers, and some of them would dare to begin their own ventures. In either case, they will add significant “new value” to the economy and create jobs. Additionally, the vibrant, interactive classroom model promoted by EMC has the potential to influence teacher mindsets and student-teacher interactions, not just in Delhi, but across the country. 

The project was launched by the Education Minister, Sh. Manish Sisodia on 13 February 2019. The curriculum was piloted in April-May 2019 and launched in all 1,010 schools starting 01 July 2019. All students in grades 9 to 12 in 17,238 classrooms across 1,010 Delhi Government schools, which is approximately 7,50,000 students. 

This curriculum is full of interesting components such as: 

The project is an immersive experience component and is being supported by the government by providing a seed funding of Rs. 1000 to each student in Grades 11 and 12. The students use these funds to execute their ‘business ideas’ outside school. The students are encouraged to develop projects that have financial, social or environmental benefits. 

The project is executed by students after school hours. The students prepare a list of 10 individuals that they want to interview. Over the course of 5 months, the students develop questionnaires to interview these individuals. Each month, two days are dedicated for students to share and reflect upon their experiences in these interactions. 

For this interaction, the government invited applications from entrepreneurs to volunteer and interact with students in the government schools. The applications are scrutinized through a process by the department officials and a database of entrepreneurs created. These entrepreneurs are invited in schools to interact with the students. In these interactions, the focus is on students understanding the entrepreneurial journey by asking questions to the entrepreneur and sharing their own reflections. 

These classes are conducted by the students themselves. These classes are structured to encourage students to be independent, improve their planning skills, boost their confidence and communication skills. The class involves different activities such as ‘Just A Minute’, which is an impromptu presentation by students, Debates and Self Improvement.

The curriculum aims to impact Important shifts in mindsets: especially that students can be independent learners, get multiple opportunities to build foundational skills and interact with different stakeholders in a safe environment. Gain experience by doing hands-on entrepreneurial projects in the real world. There is a drastic increase in student participation and the activities ensure 100% participation in classrooms. The students reflect that their focus in classrooms has increased and through the curriculum, they experience peer learning and joyfulness in their classes 

Following are the links to the curriculum booklets:

Udhyam Learning Foundation (“Udhyam”) is part of the core team in facilitating development and implementation of the EMC. Udhyam is a Not-for-Profit organization which aims to build foundational mindsets (self-belief, self-awareness, independence and grit) critical for 21st century through an experiential curriculum and a real-life entrepreneurship experience.

Udhyam was started in 2017 by Mekin Maheshwari, who had played key roles like Head of Technology; Chief People Officer at Flipkart. His experience there gave him some inkling of what future of work might be. At Udhyam, we help young people and micro-entrepreneurs actualize their highest desired possibility. Udhyam Shiksha works with young people between 14-25 years through interventions, while Udhyam Vyapaar enables micro-entrepreneurs to scale and succeed through consulting and group coaching models. Udhyam has 3,50,000 lives to touch by 2021.

Website: www.udhyam.org

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/udhyamfoundation/?ti=as

Other EMC and Udhaym related links:

1. EMC Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/Entrepreneurship-Mindset-Curriculum
2. EMC Twitter: (@EMC_Delhi): https://twitter.com/EMC_Delhi?s=09
3. CNBC-TV18: https://youtu.be/CQj1oaJ2NVM
4. Udhyam Instagram: www.udhyam.org/single-post/2019/06/07/The-Balancing-Act
5. https://educationtimes.com/article/65779767/70179183/Delhi-government-to-implement-Entrepreneurship-Mindset-curriculum-in-1022-schools.html