Several hundred students and their teachers recently completed the five-day boot camp stage of the annual Stanbic National Schools Championship (NSC) after showcasing their entrepreneurship skills and talents for developing innovative business ideas.
In his closing remarks, Francis Karuhanga, the Chief Executive of Stanbic Uganda Holdings Limited said, “I want to take this opportunity to thank the Ministry of Education and Sports that warmly welcomed the NSC idea and chose to walk with us in this journey of transforming the next generational leaders.”
“To date, the Stanbic National Schools Championship has impacted more than 480,000 learners, teachers and the community through direct and indirect beneficiaries. I want see National Schools Championship touching millions of youths not just thousands. I want to see more schools both rural and urban undertaking this innovation quest,” he added.
Hosted by Gayaza High School, the students had the opportunity to interact with mentors through a variety of training sessions including psychosocial/mental health; how to start a small business and build a successful brand; marketing, the business model canvas; structuring ideas and understanding customer needs.
During the market stimulation activity, students had a chance to display their abilities for drumming up sales.
This is the ninth edition of the NSC which runs under the overall theme ‘Empowering the job creators of tomorrow’ with the 2024 tagline being: ‘Powering Innovation for Job Creation’.
Diana Ondoga, the Manager Corporate Social Investments at Stanbic Bank said, “The boot camp is aimed at mindset change among learners between the ages of 13 to 18. This program seeks to extract what exists in these learners and get them ready to be a part of solutions to the challenges in society. The boot camp is where they are being skilled. Some of the skilling areas include the business model canvas, financial literacy, personal development, psychosocial wellness, and we also gave them an opportunity to transform UGX50,000 into a profit.”
The National School’s Championship is the flagship Corporate Social Investment for Stanbic Bank. Over the years, the competition has helped develop more than 200 successful businesses, highlighting the bank’s commitment to addressing youth unemployment and bridging the gap between education and job creation.
Ondoga added, “You would be amazed that the best group was able to generate revenues of UGX 260,000 and a profit of UGX210,000 from the UGX50 ,000. What we see here, are learners who are being told and reminded that something lies within them; that they have what it takes to become people of value in society.”
This year, the competition encompasses four main categories. The first is existing innovations, called the Student Grow Challenge which is for vocational and secondary schools which apply on behalf of their students with ongoing and active innovative projects or businesses.
The Student Spark Challenge is for vocational and secondary schools in Uganda to apply on behalf of their students with innovative projects or business ideas.
The AlumGrow Challenge is for secondary and vocational schools that previously participated in the Stanbic NSC boot camp and have started a unique business or social project.
The Teachinnovate for Teachers category targets innovations by teachers at secondary and vocational schools, who are involved in a unique business, social project or innovative teaching approach.