Integrating education & enterprise

Structured Learning

As educational institutions Financially Sustainable Schools have to balance the need to teach a broad-based technical curriculum with the desire to maximize the profitability of income generation activities.

This methodology integrates the teaching of traditional high school subjects with the running of small-scale, on-campus agricultural enterprises. These school-based enterprises serve as a platform for students to develop entrepreneurial skills and business acumen so that when they graduate from high school, they are ready to succeed as self-employed entrepreneurs and future employers. The competencies integrate cognitive and motor skills, attitudes and values. Taken together, they seek to develop a holistic skills base and aim to transform student into an economically successful “rural entrepreneur” and, eventually, an employer of others in his/her community.

The integrated teaching-production plan lays out how the teaching of productive skills translates into the development of competencies required by future employers / self-employment.

• Matching student selection with educational strategies
• Description of pedagogy ‘learning by doing’
• Competency-based education
• Cognitive objectives
• Behavioural objectives
• Curricular structure
• Integrating the academic and agricultural year
• Integrating the curriculum with school production
• School businesses as an educational platform
• Skills development and production objectives per business unit