DILI--Over a hundred primary schoolteachers from Dili’s public schools started a week-long training last May 5 to prepare for teaching Junior Achievement’s enterprise education curriculum.

Following a successful trial run in five private schools in Dili in September-December 2007, the Junior Achievement project will be introduced to six public schools in Dili starting mid-May through June 2008.

“Through this training, Junior Achievement will be introducing Timor-Leste’s primary schoolteachers to internationally recognized methods to prepare them for the task of teaching their students the ABC’s of business and economics,” USAID program officer Brian Frantz said during the opening of the teachers’ training at the Hotel Turismo.

USAID, through the Small Grants Program, is supporting Junior Achievement’s “Preparing Timor-Leste Young People for a Financially Stable Future” project. This is a long-term project to integrate business and economic education programs into the elementary school curriculum.

To date, Junior Achievement Timor-Leste has adapted and modified a business education curriculum for grades 1-6 to the Timorese context and reached 2,385 during the trial run last year.

In March 2007, Junior Achievement Timor-Leste received authorization from the Ministry of Education to begin testing the Enterprise Education curriculum in selected public schools in Dili. If the trial is successful and the Ministry of Education decides to include Enterprise Education in the primary school curriculum, Junior Achievement Timor-Leste estimates they will work with tens of thousands of grade schoolers across the country by 2009.

Junior Achievement makes use of interactive materials to teach Enterprise Education. Another interesting feature of the Junior Achievement curriculum is that successful businessmen and –women helped develop it using examples from the local environment.

“By involving businesspeople in the development of the curriculum, the Junior Achievement program seeks to help produce more employable individuals that meet the demands of the private sector. More and better jobs means a way out of poverty for many poor people and their children,” Brian Frantz explained in his remarks during the opening of the teachers’ training.

Junior Achievement is a U.S.-based organization whose programs serve as a bridge between the education and business sectors in more than 115 countries. It is committed to ensuring every child has a basic understanding of a business and, as such, is better prepared for work in the global economy.