The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET), together with Thai General Education Network, has encouraged universities across the country to embrace "Social Entrepreneurship" subject as a general education course starting from the academic year 2023 onwards, under a specially designed project called Social Enterprise (SE) @General Education (GE) to groom social entrepreneurs at university level so as to lay the entrepreneurship foundation early, to cultivate the understanding of sustainability values, while creating "change" leaders in the future.
SET President Pakorn Peetathawatchai said that SET is committed to developing the capital market to benefit all sectors under the vision "To Make the Capital Market 'Work' for Everyone" in the social development and support perspectives. SET has created opportunities for all groups of Thai people to access financial learning resources, simultaneously with the development of knowledge and entrepreneurial potential, especially small-sized entrepreneurs like startups, SMEs, as well as social enterprises (SEs). This endeavor is in line with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4): Quality Education, aiming to drive quality education.
SET in collaboration with the Thai GE Network under the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation, professionals and social sector representatives, have jointly drafted the subject "Social Entrepreneurs" to be included as general education course at the higher education level for use by universities nationwide. The key objectives of this first-ever initiative are to extend the social entrepreneurship knowledge to the new generation in the learning system, ignite the sustainability development concept, cultivate the attitude of social responsibility as the foundation of doing any business, while building the potential to be future change leaders.
Kasetsart University President and Chairman of Thai General Education Network Chongrak Watchrinrat said that the 'Social Entrepreneurship' subject is another important subject for competence development of the new generation in the 21st century, which corresponds to the general education requirement, aiming to promote knowledge, skills, attitudes and ethics. The 2-credit course with the length of 15 weeks focuses on active learning style. The main topics are Introduction to Sustainability, Introduction to SE, SE model design for social problem solving, a preliminary social impact assessment, and a preliminary Business Model Canvas design. The Social Entrepreneurship course will be used as a prototype course in general education for universities nationwide, to be applied or adapted to the identity of each university in the next academic year.
Regarding this initiative collaboration, SET has prepared online manuals and teaching materials for both public and private universities to apply and transfer knowledge, including the training focusing on hands-on teaching, which help the students think and present using team-based learning approach to lecturers. SET will hold the Train the Trainer Project for the first time this November. The collaboration also includes the onsite sessions to promote curriculum throughout next year.
SET, together with alliances, has recently launched a collaborative project to build social entrepreneurs among university students or the so-called Social Enterprise (SE) @General Education (GE), at a special event consisting of the keynote speech and seminar on "Thailand: Reform of higher education, Move forward continuously", participated by the government, private sector, social sector, and education sector to exchange views on the synergy to make changes for the better via the support of essential skills in the higher education system leading towards the creation of graduates and the development of human resources of the country. The event was organized on October 3, 2022. Interested universities please find details via www.setsocialimpact.com/impact-program/se-ge/.