The National Secondary School Entrepreneurship Competition (NSSEC) celebrated ten years of teaching high school students to build, manage and scale businesses on Tuesday.
NSSEC allows students from Forms Four to Six to build and run a company from the ground up, designing products, hiring staff, managing cash and preparing their products for the market.
Trophies, digital devices, laptops and certificates were distributed to scores of students who excelled in the tenth edition of the competition.
Gregory Sloane Seales, Community Relations Advisor at Shell Trinidad and Tobago, one of the competition’s premier sponsors, highlighted the valuable lessons students gain from participating in NSSEC.
“Some of the most important things you will take away from NSSEC have very little to do with running a business. We often tell young people that winning isn’t everything, and it isn’t, but let’s not pretend that winning doesn’t feel good. It does, and it should. There is nothing wrong with being proud of yourself, celebrating something you’ve worked hard for or enjoying the recognition that comes with doing something well.”
The six-week competition has benefited thousands of young people, as was pointed out by Vice President of Sales at Guardian Life of the Caribbean Limited, Gregg Mannette.
“Ten, that is the number that we are celebrating this morning. Ten editions of NSSEC, ten years of students walking into a simulation as classmates and walking out as business partners. More than five thousand young people have been trained in this programme, and Guardian Group has been proud to stand with this competition since its earliest years.”
Meanwhile, the Massy Foundation’s Group Senior Vice President, Nadia McCarthy, noted the significance of NSSEC and how it changes students’ lives.
“We’ve heard about the reach of NSSEC, so 128 schools and thousands of young people over the years. For us the significance is not simply the numbers; it’s what those numbers represent: young people from different schools and communities being given an opportunity to test themselves, their ideas and their abilities.”