Business class on Saturdays: Varanasi's government schools add an entrepreneurship track for Class 11

Government inter colleges in Varanasi are adding something unfamiliar to the Class 11 timetable this session — a Saturday class on how to build a business. The Skill Business Challenge runs under the National Education Policy 2020, and it is open to students across all three streams: commerce, arts and science alike. The format is simple. Each school puts together a team of eleven students, and the whole team works a single business idea from first sketch to a plan that holds up. Workbooks prepared for the programme walk them through the parts that textbooks skip — communication, critical thinking, and the habit of asking why anyone would actually pay for the thing. Ideas then climb: school level, district level, state level. At the district stage the top ten teams take ₹5,000 each; at the state stage the top five take ₹20,000 each, along with a place in a state workshop and government startup support for the strongest proposals. Two master trainers are coordinating the programme in Varanasi — Dr Kanhaiya of PM Shri Rajkiya Queens Inter College and Rajesh Kumar Ray of PM Shri Rajkiya Inter College, Jakhini. The stated aim is not to produce another set of textbook toppers, but to send students out of school with something they can run themselves.

Compiled by HelloBanaras from public sources: Amar Ujala — Varanasi