BRUNEI-MUARA

A TEAM of Year 10 students from Belait’s Perdana Wazir Secondary School emerged as this year’s champion at the Third BigStart Competition for their tutoring service business project.

The student-run project, called Big Hello Tutoring Service, garnered praises from the panel of judges for its marketing strategy as well as raking in $653.70 in net profit from May 19 to August 31 last year.

The tutoring service was designed to help children from different backgrounds in Belait district to learn languages that are practiced at national and international levels.

It offers classes for Arabic, Malay and Mandarin languages taught by hired qualified tutors and learning support assistants at a rate of $7 a session per student.

To effectively reach its target market, the students actively planned, designed and promoted their tutoring service through social media. They also distributed posters, flyers and leaflets around the major shopping areas in Belait.

 At the end of the competition, the team decided to liquidate the business with equal distribution of profits. They also donated $200 as well as their learning resources to ABC School in Belait.

The students were awarded in a prize presentation ceremony held at the Sayyidina Abu Bakar Secondary School yesterday.

Meanwhile, a team of students from Masin Secondary School in Brunei-Muara bagged second place for their EsCuela Editors project to produce the school’s year book.

By providing editorial services, the students were able to improve their writing skills whilst gaining experience in journalism and photography.

Third place went to students from Saint George’s School in Brunei-Muara, with their winning project SGS Dustbusters.

The students offers cleaning services such as car wash and house cleaning with strong support from the school, teachers, parents and peers. The project was marketed as eco-friendly, trustworthy, professional and cost-effective.

Prizes were presented to the winners by Hj Khairuddin Hj Abdul Hamid, the Deputy Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Industry and Primary Resources.

Coordinated by the Ministry of Education’s Co-curriculum Education Department, the BigStart Competition for secondary schools is aimed to promote entrepreneurship among students in line with the 21st Century National Education System (SPN21).

A total of 18 schools participated in the preliminary round with only eight schools selected in the final round.

The finalists were then provided with a $200 grant to start up their respective business projects.

The participating teams were judged based on their presentation and reports which included monthly progress reports and a full written report.

The students were required to give a 20-minute presentation about their business proposal and operate their business project over a 15-week period.

This year’s competition was themed "Services We Provide".

Speaking at the awards ceremony, the deputy principal of administration at Sayyidina Abu Bakar Secondary School Mohidin Hj Noordin said that the BigStart Competition will help encourage students to pursue entrepreneurship.

In his speech, Mohidin said that the competition aims to develop students' creativity in planning a business project as well as enhance innovation and risk-taking in their efforts to operate a business.

“Apart from that, it will surely help teachers...to be alert and always strive to diversify their teaching methods so that students enrolled in the subject will have a strong and very deep interest in careers related to the subject,” said Mohidin.

The Brunei Times