Embedding entrepreneurship skills in Thai education

The project ‘Developing and Embedding Enterprise and Entrepreneurship in the vocational curriculum in Thailand: sharing UK innovative practice’ has won the UK National Enterprise Educators Award: FE Team Enterprise 2017 at the National Enterprise Educator (NCEE) Awards on 7 September 2017 in Glasgow. 

Our objective

Our Thai partners sought to strengthen the Thai economy through the creation of more small businesses and to improve students’ entrepreneurial skills and mindsets to meet the needs of the small and medium sized enterprise job market.

To support this, the project aims to:

  • develop a learning programme that could form the basis for integrating entrepreneurship education into the Thai vocational education and training curriculum 
  • design and facilitate professional development activities for teachers and incubation (start-up) managers working in colleges across Thailand 
  • provide recommendations for wider implementation.
AT THE HEART OF THE PROJECT

In 2016, with the support of the British Council and the Thai Ministry of Education’s Office for Vocational Education Commission (OVEC), Grŵp Llandrillo Menai (GLLM, based in Wales) developed a new approach and curriculum for student enterprise and entrepreneurship for vocational education in Thailand. The new approach and curriculum is now being piloted in Thai colleges. For the second phase of the project GLLM were joined by 2 additional UK colleges - South Eastern Regional College (SERC, based in Northern Ireland) and Hertfordshire Regional College (HRC, based in England), and together they have worked jointly to support Thai colleges as they implement the new programme providing mentoring for educators and building sustainable partnerships between UK and Thai institutions.

Our strategy

The project focuses on some key areas of activity:

  • field research with Thai stakeholders including policy makers, entrepreneurs, intuitional leaders and educators, graduate start-ups and vocational education and training learners  
  • identification and extensive mapping of existing UK accredited enterprise learning programmes against Thai government priorities
  • development of a Level 2 entrepreneurship curriculum, comprising three modules: Mindset; Motivation; Business Planning and Models
  • action learning workshops to ensure appropriateness/suitability with key Thai enterprise educators 
  • design and facilitation of a four-day educator development programme for 30 educators working across Thailand
  • provision of mentoring support to five Thai colleges to design high-quality teaching materials and develop partnerships.

DEVELOPING NEW ENTERPRISE AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION THEMES

Through the programme, key enterprise and entrepreneurship education themes were developed for vocational and educational training in Thailand from UK QAA Guidance. These have now been adopted by OVEC as part of the Thai government’s policy to support student and graduate entrepreneurship.

These themes are:

  • creativity
  • recognise and develop opportunity/opportunities 
  • demonstrate decision-making
  • build ideas through teamwork
  • reflection
  • interpersonal skills.

DEVELOPING A NEW ENTREPRENEURSHIP CURRICULUM

Alongside this, an integrated learning programme was developed. It provides recognition and accreditation for the enterprise mindset and motivation learning (which had not previously existed) whilst adding value to well-established practices of business planning education.

NEW COLLABORATIONS

Multi-level, cross-sector collaborations were established between the project partners in the UK and Thailand. Formal institutional collaborations have flourished between UK further education and Thai vocational education and training colleges. The Thai colleges are providing peer support in new country-based networks, while the colleges in the UK are collaborating with third sector expert consultancy organisations to provide quality, responsive support to the Thai partner colleges.  

 

 Our impact

Project evaluations so far have highlighted significant impact, including: 

  • Changes in Thai policy guidance: the six new underpinning themes for vocational education and training have been adopted by OVEC, providing a framework for a consistent, sustainable approach to entrepreneurship education. 
  • Staff development: 30 educators participated in a bespoke professional development programme that provided underpinning knowledge and practical tools to support the entrepreneurial development of learners; participants reported greater confidence in their ability to engage and enable students and colleagues to embrace their institution’s enterprise agenda, and teams of teachers, incubation centre managers and directors from five selected colleges have benefited from additional mentoring support.
  • Curriculum change: the new curriculum is currently being piloted in five colleges.
  • Institutional commitment: directors from each of the five colleges have pledged to support the implementation of the new curriculum and partnership development. 
  • UK project partners benefited from an enhanced international profile, new and stronger partnerships and improved staff development. As an international project, the effects of broadening horizons, experiencing another culture’s approach to work, building new teams and inspiring the development of expertise in enterprise education will all ultimately benefit our learners.

To read about the project in more details, please open the PDF in the Downloads section below.

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