Entrepreneurship Development Programmes (EDP)
As the term itself denotes, EDP is a programme meant to develop entrepreneurial abilities among people. In other words, it refers to the inculcation, development, and polishing of entrepreneurial skills into a person needed to establish and successfully run his / her enterprise. Thus, the concept of an entrepreneurship development programme involves equipping a person with the required skills and knowledge needed for starting and running the enterprise.
Need for EDPs
entrepreneurs possess certain competencies or traits. These competencies or traits are the underlying characteristics of entrepreneurs which result in superior performance and which distinguish successful entrepreneurs from unsuccessful ones.
Then, the important question that arises: where do these traits come from? Or, whether these traits are born in the entrepreneurs or can be induced and developed? In other words, whether the entrepreneurs are born or made? Behavioural scientists have tried to seek answers to these questions.
A well-known behavioural scientist David C. McClelland (1961) at Harvard University made an interesting investigation-cum-experiment into why certain societies displayed great creative powers at particular periods of their history? What was the cause of these creative bursts of energy? He found that ‘the need for achievement (n’ each factor)’ was the answer to this question. It was the need for achievement that motivates people to work hard. According to him, money-making was incidental. It was only a measure of achievement, not its motivation.
To answer the next question of whether this need for achievement could be induced, he conducted a five-year experimental study in Kakinada, i.e. one of the prosperous districts of Andhra Pradesh in India in collaboration with the Small Industries Extension and Training Institute (SIET), Hyderabad.
This experiment is popularly known as the ‘Kakinada Experiment’. Under this experiment, young persons were selected and put through a three-month training programme and motivated to see fresh goals.
One of the significant conclusions of the experiment was that traditional beliefs did not seem to inhibit an entrepreneur and that suitable training can provide the necessary motivation to entrepreneurs (McClelland & Winter 1969). The achievement motivation had a positive impact on the performance of entrepreneurs.
In fact, the ‘Kakinada Experiment’ could be treated as a precursor to the present-day EDP inputs on behavioural aspects. In a sense, the ‘Kakinada Experiment’ is considered the seed for the Entrepreneurship Development Programmes (EDPs) in India.
The fact remains that it was the ‘Kakinada Experiment’ that made people appreciate the need for and importance of entrepreneurial training, now popularly known as ‘EDPs’, to induce motivation and competence among young prospective entrepreneurs.
Based on this, it was the Gujarat Industrial Investment Corporation (GIIC) that, for the first time, started a three-month training programme on entrepreneurship development. Impressed by the results of GIIC’s this training programme, the Government of India embarked, in 1971, on a massive programme on entrepreneurship development. Since then, there is no looking back on this front. By now, there are some 686 all-India and State level institutions engaged in conducting EDPs in hundreds imparting training to the candidates in thousands.
Till now, 12 State Governments have established state-level Centre for Entrepreneurship Development (CED) or Institute of Entrepreneurship Development (LED) to develop entrepreneurship by conducting EDPs. Today, the EDP in India has proliferated to such a magnitude that it has emerged as a national movement. It is worth mentioning that India operates the oldest and largest programmes for entrepreneurship development in any developing country.
The impact of India’s EDP movement is borne by the fact that the Indian model of entrepreneurship development is being adopted by some of the developing countries of Asia and Africa. Programmes similar to India’s EDPs are conducted in other countries also, for example, the ‘Junior Achievement Programme’ based on the principle of ‘catch them young in the USA and ‘Young Enterprises’ in the U. K.
Objectives of EDP
The major objectives of the Entrepreneurship Development Programmes (EDPs) are to:
(i) Develop and strengthen the entrepreneurial quality, i.e. motivation or need for achievement.
(ii) Analyse environmental set-up relating to small industry and small business.
(iii) Select the product.
(iv) Formulate a proposal for the product.
(v) Understand the process and procedure involved in setting up a small enterprise.
(vi) Know the sources of help and support available for starting a small-scale industry.
(vii) Acquire the necessary managerial skills required to run a small-scale industry.
(viii) Know the pros and cons of becoming an entrepreneur.
(ix) Appreciate the needed entrepreneurial discipline.
(x) Enable to communicate clearly and effectively.
(xi) Develop a broad vision of the business.
(xii) Make him subscribe to industrial democracy.
(xiii) Develop a passion for integrity and honesty.
(iv) Make him learn compliance with the law.
Comments