Starter Kit. Idea 334 of 500. Cluster 16
Adult education evenings in every town: a language, a trade, a skill, paid per course
The mechanism, from the book
177,000 qualify every year and 45,000 get a place. The other 130,000 are a market that nobody has built for, and the polytechnic is not a second choice when it leads to a job.
The first step
Book a room in a community hall or school for one evening a week for 4 weeks, and advertise one practical course, such as English for work or basic accounts, at a price per course. Take payment up front. If the course fills, run a second one. If it does not, ask the people who came what they wanted instead.
- Who pays first
- A working adult in a town who wants a skill for a better job and can only study in the evenings.
- What leaves today
- Adults who left school with no further route stay in low-paid work, because no one sells them a skill in the evening.
Ask first
- the local council (Municipal Council, Urban Council or Pradeshiya Sabha). Ask whether a community hall can be hired for paid evening classes.
- Tertiary and Vocational Education Commission. Ask whether short skill courses must be registered to issue a certificate.
Check before you spend
Permission from the hall or school for paid classes, that no certificate is promised which is not recognised, and fire safety for the room.
Find out these three numbers
- How many people pay up front for the first course?
- What price per course fills the room?
- Which courses do people ask for instead?
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.