MOHE targets 15 per cent of IPT students to become entrepreneurs while still studying by 2020

The Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) targets that by 2020, 15 per cent of students will venture into entrepreneurship while they are still pursuing studies at institution of higher education (IPT), with five per cent of them having the primary goal to become entrepreneurs upon graduating.

Deputy Minister Datuk Dr Mary Yap Kain Ching said over 60 per cent of IPT students were actively involved in entrepreneurship activities and programmes 2016 and three per cent of them had become entrepreneurs while pursuing their tertiary education.

"We are referring to the framework where we want our students not to be job seekers but to be job creators," she told reporters after launching the Siswapreneur Showcase 2017 programme here, Monday.

Yap said the entrepreneurship programmes at the IPT level under the IPT Entrepreneurship Action Plan 2016-2020 were carried out with the concept of "Learn and Earn" with an opportunity to earn personal income while studying.

She said the Siswapreneur Showcase programme, which is the first in its series, for example, was among the ministry's initiatives to expose the students to the real world of entrepreneurship so that they would be prepared to put their entrepreneurial knowledge and skills into practice.

The programme, which involves over 50 students-cum-entrepreneurs from several IPT, including Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Universiti Putra Malaysia and Tanjong Karang Community College, would be held in several series, with the next one to be held in Kuala Lumpur in June.

-- BERNAMA