Business courses urged

By ANCILLA WRAKUALE
THE government has been urged to recognise business training programmes in schools and make it as a national curriculum, manager of Know About Business Henry Marasembi said.
He said not all students after graduating from universities and secondary schools would get jobs and this was where the government should step in.
Marasembi said KAB was a relevant business training and the Department of Education should take ownership of the course and make it as part of its teaching curriculum.
He said the main objective of the KAB project was to create an enterprise culture in PNG and secondly to encourage self-employment for young people as a career choice.
KAB project was introduced in PNG in 2006 and was aimed at training students in secondary and technical vocational education training (TVET) schools on entrepreneurship.
Maresembi said they had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Education Department in 2006 and the project was now in the pilot phase in seven provinces.
He said PNG had high unemployment rate and it was through such programmes, that they were looking at providing opportunities for young people.
Maresembi said they had trained more than 21,000 students in 35 selected schools under the pilot project.
He said feedback from the participating schools so far was good and they were looking at continuing the scheme.