Innovative Secondary Education For Skills Enhancement

was expanded to Poland and Hungary in 2006. The PTS
life skills curriculum is currently available in 12 languages
and has been successfully tested in a variety of venues,
including both public and private secondary schools, vocational–technical
institutes, teacher training colleges, and
youth-serving nonprofit organizations.
A key measure of success of the program is the extent to
which young people are either in school or employed six
months after participating in the program. To date, more
than 40,000 young people have completed the program
in eight countries. Evaluations of the PTS program have
shown it to have a significant impact among participating
young people in four essential life-skills categories:
personal development, problem solving, healthy lifestyles,
and workplace success, as well as in reducing school
dropout rates and increasing employment, and in helping
at-risk youth increase their levels of self-confidence and
hope for the future.
Youthreach conducted a follow-up survey with 374 youth
participants six months after they graduated from the
program to track their progression. This survey found
that 58 percent of respondents were continuing with their
vocational skills training after attending the PTS program,
and 38 percent had either found a job/internship or started
their own enterprise. The majority of youth who found
employment after graduating from the program indicated
that they are performing better at their job, working more
effectively in teams, and better understand how to behave
in an office setting as a result of the PTS training.
Multi-Skill Vocational Training and
Entrepreneurship Development As
Part of Secondary Education (India)
Lend-a-Hand India implements a program in governmentaided
schools that is a blend of traditional academic work
and hands-on projects that emphasize relevant skills
students need in rural areas.
Approach. The Lend-a-Hand program works to make the
secondary school curriculum more relevant to the rural
environment. Subjects such as basic engineering, energy,
the environment, agriculture, animal husbandry, and
home and health science are introduced, complementing
existing curriculum subjects such as mathematics and science.
Students are also trained in practical business skills
such as timeliness, calculating costs, marketing and selling
their products locally, and ascertaining profits.
For these vocational and entrepreneurship courses,
instructors are recruited from within the local community
workforce. Lend-a-Hand works with the school
management to identify and train instructors, who are
typically local microentrepreneurs in the identified fields.
In addition to monetary incentives, these microentrepreneurs
also receive an opportunity to undertake additional
work orders received by the school from the community,
appear for open school diploma examinations, and access
networks to expand their business.
Scale and Impact. Lend-a-Hand has been so successful
that it has been recognized formally as a full credit course
by the government of Maharashtra. Attendance levels in
schools where the program is implemented have reached
almost 100 percent. In a recent survey conducted with
1,200 students who graduated, more than 20 percent stated
they would like to start their own venture after they
complete their further studies. The program is currently
planning to expand to Gujarat and Orissa states in 2012,
but it remains to be seen if the quality of the program can
be maintained as the program is brought to scale.
Cost and Sustainability. Lend-a-Hand India has established
a sustainable grassroots model that capitalizes
on existing infrastructure and resources to achieve scale
and sustainability, partnering with government schools,
pervasive in rural India, to implement this approach. It
contributes to approximately 80 percent of the initial
costs, and the schools are required to invest the remaining
20 percent. Pursuant to such commitment, the school
management makes arrangements for space and infrastructure
necessary to launch the program. By integrating
skills-based education within the mainstream regular education,
using local resources (local microentrepreneurs as
trainers), customizing the curriculum to local conditions,
and having the program largely implemented and run by
the local schools, the model is relatively low cost.
The program is currently supported by individual and
corporate donations, marathon teams, and fundraising in
international chapters. However, self-sustaining financing
methods are being introduced in the form of monthly fees
from students, income-generating activities carried out by
students, in-kind contributions from local private enterprise,
government grant schemes, and fundraising from
the alumni network.
52 Innovative Secondary Education For Skills Enhancement (ISESE)