The meeting for the final evaluation of Social Entrepreneurs Academy was held for six hours on the 3rd of February at the Work Together Foundation.
Social Entrepreneurs’ Academy 2008, which lasted for six months, was hosted by the Ministry of Labor, organized by the Work Together Foundation, and sponsored by SK.
Social Entrepreneurs’ Academy is a series of professional education programs to promote pre-social entrepreneurs who are preparing to found social enterprises or are already participating in social enterprises as social entrepreneurs. Its goal is to make them understand the core values of social entrepreneurship and work as professional management officers. It had been operated by 19 national education institutions since September 2008.
All the business associates from 19 education institutions, the Ministry of Labor, the Work Together Foundation, and Ph.D KIM, Mee-Souk of the Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education & Training attended at this evaluation meeting. It started with a greeting speech by KIM, Do Young from SK, followed by a performance report of Social Entrepreneurs’ Academy 2008 by KIM, Chang Joo from the Work Together Foundation. The performance report covers an overview of the projects and their processes, including the analysis of the students and lecturers of the academy, an overall evaluation of the project, and suggestions.
Dr. KIM presented the monitoring research and total evaluation of Social Entrepreneurs’ Academy 2008. She presented the positive result of the academy, the significance and goals of evaluation through the monitoring of the academy, and also suggested further monitoring, evaluation work, and a direction for the project in the future.
After the morning schedule, participants had a lunch prepared by the Organization YORI, a catering social enterprise, and had time for sharing the results of the 19 educational institutions for 90 minutes. The representatives of the institutions explained their own programs’ operation results and introduced a plan for their later project, and also made suggestions for the improvement of operation efficiency.
LEE, Kang Yeon, who is an administrative official of the Ministry of Labor, presented the action plan for promoting social entrepreneurs from the Ministry of Labor in 2009. Following that, the participants had a Q&A session for five minutes, followed by a coffee break.
Later, they had a passionate discussion about improving the effect of Social Entrepreneurs’ Academy.
The discussion was categorized into three parts:
-To find a solution for improving the academy’s curriculum by region and theme
-To strengthen the human resource development of students and their networks
-To reinforce the effectiveness of lectures, curriculum, and textbooks, and the capabilities of lecturers
Each discussion panel had a somewhat different opinion on how to improve Social Entrepreneurs’ Academy, even though they all agreed on the necessity of it and its existence. The discussion was lively and went on for two hours. It exposed the thoughts of the participants concerning the reality of the project, which is still in its embryonic phase and faces many of difficulties. It also brought up many critical comments and alternatives for the problems faced by Social Entrepreneurs’ Academy 2008. All of this showed the great concern and affection for nourishing social entrepreneurs who will someday be the core of social enterprises.
Social Entrepreneurs’ Academy 2009 is expected to be effectively operated based on the overall evaluation meeting of the educational institutions in 2008, and should benefit from the passion shown by its participants.
Cheer up!
All the Social Entrepreneurs Who are Making Their Dreams Come True Even Today!
Feb. 3, 2009
Translated by CHO, Su Yeon
