Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) has mentored 850 new student entrepreneurs through Student Entrepreneurship Programme (PMW) 2019.
Head of Student Character Development Sub-directorate UGM, Dr.dr. Rustamaji, M.Kes., said student entrepreneurship development was done by UGM to prepare the students for competition at work. Through the programme, UGM selected its students that are interested in entrepreneurship to be given business mentoring and funding so their business may run independently.
“This year we will give mentoring to 850 new entrepreneurs. But in the future we are thinking to have 1,000 new entrepreneurs,” he said on Monday (5/8).
The students are then asked to write a business proposal. The selected proposals are given funding between RP2-25 million and later evaluated and monitored of their sustainability. The students are guided by lecturers having experience in entrepreneurship. The business quite varies, such as technology, culinary, services, cultivation, etc.
“We are introducing entrepreneurship to students to prepare them for creating job opportunities. Presently, job opportunities are a big issue so we need to encourage our students to be independent and create their own jobs,” he said.
The programme started in 2010. After almost 9 years, there are only as high as 20% of the student business that sustain.
“As high as 20 percent of the business sustain, the rest has been recruited by companies so they lost concentration and their business stopped,” he explained.
Even so, Rustamaji hoped the programme would be able to generate more entrepreneurs while the business would sustain.