ABW Enterprise Education
Strand Focus:
Employability
Purpose / objective of initiative
ABW aims to develop an enterprising culture in schools and their communities so that young people are equipped with the skills to create and manage personal, community, business and work opportunities.
ABW aims to support all of the work-related key competencies and to reinforce all learning areas in the school curriculum with cross-faculty participation in the school. The demonstrated benefits to students and teachers extend beyond what might be expected from a conventional, business-oriented course.
Main partners
Australian Business Week is a not-for-profit organisation. Its program ABW Enterprise Education was developed by a partnership of major corporations, schools, government and private school systems and major universities across all states of Australia.
Main beneficiaries
ABW programs are running in all Australian states and are offered at the school, state and national level. Approximately 34,000 secondary school students have participated in an ABW program since 1993. ABW Enterprise Education is also run for business undergraduates and corporate employees. It has also been conducted for international business visitors and the first program outside Australia was run in June 2002 for Scottish school students.
ABW has been proven to be very successful because it encourages the involvement of a wide cross section of the community across Australia in a cooperative effort to raise the vocational and personal skills of students through a student-centred and student-managed approach to learning.
Business mentors gain by developing leadership and people skills, raising the awareness of their business in the community in a positive way, and forming productive education / business partnerships for the benefit of all.
Main contributors
The schools’ program is supported by a comprehensive ABW schools’ kit that allows teachers, working with business mentors, to plan, develop and manage the whole program for students, none of whom need have any prior business knowledge. Contributors to the printed and electronic material in this kit include teachers, university lecturers, business managers, software writers and film makers.
ABW Enterprise Education programs create ‘community coalitions’ where local business people volunteer to work with local teachers for the benefit of students. Volunteers participate as guest speakers, judges, sponsors and mentors.
Essential elements
ABW Enterprise Education is an intensive one-week in-school program for the whole of a Year 10 or Year 11 cohort (15 to 17 years of age), with all other classes suspended for that week. It gives young people the opportunity to learn about themselves and about business from the business perspective, by working with business mentors. As an immersion program, ABW assumes no previous knowledge and requires no prior preparation.
Students in groups of ten form a simulated company. They assume the roles of the company's managers. In an experiential, hands-on decision-making process, they make all the decisions affecting their company's performance in the marketplace. The marketplace is devised through a teacher-operated computer simulation of the economy.
In the course of the one-week, students run their company over a simulated two-year period in competition against other student companies. The company with the highest share price is the winner of that simulated ‘quarter’.
On the last day each student company submits a written report, devises a trade display, submits a video advertisement and makes an oral presentation to an invited audience.
Main factors of its success
ABW programs have proven to be very successful because they encourage the involvement of a wide cross section of the community across Australia in a cooperative effort to raise the vocational and personal skills of students through a student-centred and student-managed approach to learning.
The wide variety of experiences in ABW Enterprise Education differ from the usual school activities allowing students to discover talents of which they were not previously aware, in themselves and their peers. Low achieving students find that the team decisions give them an opportunity to develop confidence, while talented students have a chance to delve into new areas of interest.
From experience the most successful means of promoting ABW programs and achieving take-up are:
give potential schools the opportunity to observe a program in operation in their local area, including learning outcomes for students
give school communities confidence in their ability to successfully run a program by giving hands on support in a workshop in their local area
provide ongoing support from a dedicated head office team and their regional manager - qualified professional staff who command respect from school and business audiences
constantly upgrade the quality of program materials to ensure they reflect current best practice.
Assessment / evaluation process and evidence of its strength
A nation-wide evaluation report of ABW Enterprise Education is published annually for the Australian Federal Government by the Research Centre for Vocational Education and Training at the University of Technology Sydney.
As part of this evaluation, each ABW participant completes a survey questionnaire immediately before and after each ABW program. A summary is provided to each school of the measurable changes, invariably positive, in attitude, knowledge and skills as assessed by the students themselves as a result of the ABW program in the school. Longer-term evaluation of the program is conducted through interviewing of stakeholders nationally.
Number of years the program has been in existence, and growth since inception
ABW programs are running in all Australian states and are offered at the school, state and national level. In 2001, 102 schools conducted the program. Approximately 34,000 secondary students have participated in an ABW program since 1993. The graph below indicates growth in each of the nine years, apart from 2000 because of the Sydney Olympics.
Impact
In many schools and colleges ABW is viewed as a platform that supports the other enterprise programs because ABW is the only program that involves the whole student cohort in Years 10 or 11. Selected students then participate in other enterprise programs that may run over a longer period.
Potential replication and scale of the initiative
The ABW funding model is based on the concept of ‘user pays’. Schools pay an A$260 annual licensing fee and each student participant pays A$36. This makes the ABW program cost effective and sustainable. While ABW seeks sponsorship and other support to fund growth and new developments, once it achieves target numbers ABW becomes self-supporting at that level.
ABW Enterprise Education is also run for business undergraduates and corporate employees. It has been conducted for international business visitors and the first program outside Australia was run in June 2002 for Scottish school students. ABW OnLine launched earlier in 2002 has allowed schools and colleges across the globe to enter international on-line competitions.
Underwriter:
Mr Norman Owens, Founder and Chairman, Australian Business Week
PO Box 2335, North Parramatta NSW 1750 AUSTRALIA
‘phone +61 2 9683 9900 fax +61 2 9890 5046
email Norman.Owens@abw.org.au
Author and prime contact:
Mr Glyn Evans, Regional Manager, Australian Business Week
PO Box 2335, North Parramatta NSW 1750 AUSTRALIA
‘phone +61 2 9630 3933 fax +61 2 9630 3919
email Glyn.Evans@abw.org.au