How to make secrets of successful entrepreneurship publicly available, equip adult population with them and give people an opportunity to self-actualize – these are the issues considered and addressed within the framework of implementing a component of the project on setting up and development of Adult Training Centers at vocational colleges in Uzbekistan by introducing courses “Start and Improve Your Business” into their activities.
Enhancing the role of small business and entrepreneurship in economic development of the country, recognition of this objective as a priority of national development in Uzbekistan highlight the issues pertaining to arrangement of professional training for entrepreneurs. This segment of the educational services market is quite attractive to educational institutions and is of great interest to Adult Training Centers. However, occupying one’s niche and successful operations in this educational market segment require practical training programs and materials, as well as people able to train first-time and already working entrepreneurs. Even the shallow analysis of the current situation in the country makes it possible to draw a conclusion that, in general, most people starting their business have no knowledge of marketing fundamentals and have quite foggy ideas of organization of the business itself, procedures and principles of interaction of business environment and government agencies. If in developed market economies one can acquire entrepreneurship knowledge and skills at schools and colleges, in our country this opportunity is currently offered to population of the capital and regional centers where most business incubators as well as special training centers that can train beginners and already operating entrepreneurs are concentrated. Thus, mastering new training products designed for training of entrepreneurs by Adult Training Centers in Uzbekistan opens up ample opportunities for them to train adult population. The most important thing is that the country has a training product appropriate for this purpose, which has been developed and is being actively introduced by the International Labour Organization. This is the course “Start and Improve Your Business” (SIYB). Its implementation and use of ATC to train adult population are a good basis for business education development in rural areas. In this regard, one should take into account that in recent years the state has done a lot to provide all-round support to entrepreneurship, and actually the environment enabling almost every resident of Uzbekistan to self-actualize in entrepreneurship has been established. One small thing has yet to be done – to provide people with information on what is required to start own business, give them knowledge and form skills required for business operations.
"What is the SIYB program, and why Adult Training Centers are interested in it?
The program “Start and Improve Your Business” has been developed by experts of the International Labour Organization and is successfully used to train beginner and already operating entrepreneurs in over 80 countries all over the world. In Uzbekistan this program was introduced by the Market Skills Development Center, is used in practice and has been effectively operating for 9 years. In these years, the training has covered over 5,000 persons, and most program participants were the unemployed willing to start their own business. The course became popular and was taken by the trainees in all regions of the country. To date, more than a thousand of the program graduates have their own business and are successful entrepreneurs. This has become a reason to implement the idea to equip the ATC staff with the SIYB program being successfully used in adult training. The program’s distinctive feature is that it is simple and accessible, provided with training materials and can be used to train both first-time and already operating entrepreneurs. In its turn, the established ATCs, in addition to practical training courses for specialists in specific areas of activity, are able and willing to train all the interested persons in entrepreneurship fundamentals. In fact, vocational training of adult population combined with training in entrepreneurship and business organization skills in many ways improves chances of people, who underwent this training, for employment."
Certainly, the idea to train the trainers from among the ATC staff able to train persons willing to start their business is neither easy to implement nor simple. On the one hand, in the course of this project component implementation we have faced the challenge that the trainers to-be must have a clear picture of entrepreneurship and business, feel what it is and try their hands in business. This is an essential condition, which makes the project goals achievable, and training of beginners and already operating entrepreneurs at ATCs a real and promising activity. In this context, a decision was taken to carry out training of the ATC specialists to organize training in entrepreneurship using the SIYB course materials in two stages: start with giving the ATC staff knowledge of entrepreneurship and business fundamentals and then train them as the SIYB program trainers. Naturally, a number of training participants had already had some ideas of entrepreneurship. At the same time, having an idea is one thing, and another thing is to understand the details, knowledge of which will enable them to deliver practical training for prospective businessmen.
That is why during the training in entrepreneurship and business fundamentals the ATC specialists first of all familiarized themselves in detail with skills and knowledge required for every businessman. Moreover, the methods selected for this training enabled the trainees to try the role of entrepreneurs, assess their entrepreneurial characteristics and skills, undergo the process of setting up their own business starting with search for and assessment of a viable business idea, development of the marketing concept, preparation of a business plan and ending with familiarization with registration procedures required for every first-time businessman.
Another new and important element of training of the SIYB program trainers from among the ATC staff is that upon completion of the training in entrepreneurship and business fundamentals each participant developed his/her own business plan based on the knowledge acquired. Moreover, some of them prepared business plans to develop their ATCs, someone elaborated in detail and estimated the introduction of new training products, and others developed plans to implement specific business ideas in their regions.
The most important thing in this process is that the course participants have mastered practical skills of using a solid approach to organizing a business based on planning and estimation of business activities. We are pleased to note that participants were interested deeply in this work rather than seeing it as a technical assignment. Business plans presented by participants demonstrated that the knowledge they had acquired was already used in practice and they could use the entrepreneurial approaches when organizing their own activities.
The second stage of the ATC staff training was mastering methodology of the SIYB courses using interactive methods and teaching techniques.
The trainees took the strongest interest in the role play “Ozzobulla” during which each participant tried the roles of a trainer and a trainee and, based on the achieved results and mistakes, could understand how to build the adult training process and what to take into account.
Participants in the second stage of the workshop acquired skills of using various training forms and methods ensuring interactive practical application. The trainees not only studied them, but also could try the training techniques that make it possible for each adult trainee to feel comfortable and at the same time obtain skills and knowledge required for an entrepreneur. The participants could feel the advantage of the principle “it is easier and better to be trained while playing” when they familiarized themselves with and took part in the “Business game” being a part and an individual component of the SIYB course. Having been split into the “red”, “blue”, and “green”, by manufacturing and selling their own products the trainees could dive into the well-imitated entrepreneurial work, acquire the concepts of a business cycle and financial planning, and find out what numerous “contingencies” entrepreneurs could expect in the course of their business activity. Definitely, a game is not equivalent to a real situation; however, being aware of opportunities offered by such a game will enable participating first-time entrepreneurs to significantly reduce the number of their mistakes in the future, which means saving of their own money. This was the conclusion drawn by the ATC staff who very much appreciated the game as an essential component of the overall training course for beginner and already operating entrepreneurs, which they would introduce into their centers’ activities.
Summing up the training results, the participants were unanimous that the two weeks of training slipped away like two days. However, the value of obtained knowledge and training materials provides a real basis for organizing activities in many years ahead. What is required is persistence and patience to go through with it. Moreover, this activity is of utmost importance, since people feel the need for it; they will use the new services offered by ATCs, acquire knowledge that opens up a real opportunity to make use of entrepreneurial capacity intrinsic to our people. The state will benefit from this as well, as there will be more opportunities for self-employment and family business development; there will be more tax revenues, entrepreneurial sector will get stronger and develop as it is the basis of every market economy.
Mikhail Khadaev,
Deputy Director General,
Market Skills Development Center,
Master-Trainer, ILO SIYB Program.
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