Curriculum on 'Earlypreneurship' for girl students to be developed by TNWeSAFE
The ‘earlypreneurship’ curriculum will be designed to promote entrepreneurial mindset and skills required to start a business of any scale.
School education department
CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu Women Employment and Safety (TNWeSAFE) project and the Department of School Education together are all set to develop a curriculum on ‘earlypreneurship’ (early entrepreneurship) and gender sensitisation for girls in government schools across the state.
The ‘earlypreneurship’ curriculum will be designed to promote entrepreneurial mindset and skills required to start a business of any scale.
In June 2024, Deputy CM Udhayanidhi Stalin launched TNWeSAFE, which is a five-year plan (2024-2029) with an investment of Rs 1,185 crore (World Bank). The project is aimed at fostering women into the workforce, while also enhancing their safety and economic growth. It began with a target of TN becoming a ‘1 trillion economy’ by 2030.
To implement the objective of the curriculum, the education department is also likely to conduct a psychometric test, which is usually conducted to help assess the knowledge, skill and personality of the student. Based on this, the student can focus and choose a career/business of his/her choice. Furthermore, such an initiative will also be extended to collegiate education.
Initially, the plan was to implement the programme in 2024, and now, it has been tabled for this year. Meanwhile, the project has been designed to achieve 3 objectives: employ, enable and empower. The TNWeSAFE is structured with a State Project Management Unit (SPMU) and District Project Management Units (DPMUs) for effective implementation.
The activities lined-up for 2025-26 financial year beside earlypreneurship and gender sensitisation are” a one-stop women information bank, establishment of Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) hubs in 10 ITIs and 4 polytechnics colleges, entrepreneurship support to vulnerable women, widows and transgender, retrofitting Adi Dravidar and government hostels for girls, self-defence training for students staying in 6 service homes and 27 Annai Sathya homes. Other activities include organising and conducting Global Women’s summit and dissemination of TN State Women Policy and Gender Initiatives.
Some activities that kick-started in 2024-25 year are Women’s Quality Employment Plan (WQEP) development, crèche-cum-after school care named ‘Anbukudil’ and online complaint registration and monitoring system.
