When Form Four students of Corpus Christi College entered the National Secondary School Entrepreneurship Competition (NSSEC) last year they were the youngest team in the competition.
The regulations of the NSSEC allow for students from Form Four to Upper Six to participate and the majority of teams selected players from the upper end of that spectrum to represent their schools.
“After the opening ceremony for the competition we saw the children from the other schools and they looking like big people,” Anjelic Alexander recalled.
“We were like ‘why are we here?’ We felt a little intimidated looking at some of the schools but we didn’t show it.”
“We definitely were a little intimidated at first but we never showed it. Instead, we decided we would show them what we could do. We decided to put our best foot forward and that is what we did,” Rhondelle Arthur said.
And the girls of Corpus Christi definitely showed what they were capable of.
The team of Alexander, Arthur, Jada Joseph, Kerdiesha Belgrave and Arianna Shah, competing as Future Technologies, placed second overall in the NSSEC last year. They were a bit surprised that they managed to do so well.
“During the competition we were focused on Sca1rborough Secondary and wondering how we could we pass them because they were at the top of the table,” Alexander said.
“When we went to the closing ceremony and they were calling out the results they announced that Scarborough came third. When we heard their name, we were sure we did not place.”
Then it was announced that Corpus Christi had, in fact, secured second spot.
“When we heard our name we actually screamed and everybody turned around, we were all shocked and excited,” Arthur said.
Future Technologies also topped their group.
Alexander said while it was great for the team to place so high in the competition, what was more important to her was all that they learned during the NSSEC. The students are now in Form Five preparing for the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examination.
“A lot of the stuff that we learnt during the competition they are actually now teaching us in class, so I have a jump start and that has helped me to pick up with the work,” Alexander said.
David Stone, of 3 Stone Ltd, the organisation managing the NSSEC, said this is the main purpose of the competition.
“Learning is more important than winning. The skills you learn during the competition will last a lifetime,” he told the new group of Form Four students representing Corpus Christi in the NSSEC.
This year, each school participating in the NSSEC is allowed two teams.
Corpus Christi’s team one this year, WizTech Corporation, consists of Angelina Marks, Shereal Davis, Darcel Bascombe, Denesha Collins and Alexia Petamber. David Skinner-Ballantyne, the teacher who guided Corpus Christi to its second-place finish last year, will be advising the team.
Corpus Christi’s second team has chosen the company name HD Industrial and its members are Jordana de la Rosa, Reynell Francis, Alyssa James, Ayodele Adebisi and Jody Glascow. Teacher Crystal Thomas will be advising the HD Industrial Team.
Arthur advised the new participants to give their best. She said the NSSEC helped her develop a different attitude to business subjects.
“When I entered Form Four I didn’t want to do business subjects. I decided to stick with it and I fell in love with business when I saw the different aspects of it while participating in the NSSEC,” she said.
Alexander said she was glad to be able to get a hands-on approach to work.
“I was surprised at first because I didn’t think there was stuff like this you can do and it sounded like a lot of work but our teachers assured us that if we worked hard and did it we would be able to succeed. There were challenges but we never thought about giving up,” she said.
About the NSSEC
The National Secondary School Entrepreneurship Competition is an entrepreneurship simulation training. Information from students is uploaded to Marketplace Live, a simulation programme developed by Innovative Learning Solutions Inc. There are 116 teams participating.
Here are some more details on the competition:
• Schools are allowed a maximum of two teams
• Groups are randomly selected via a live draft consisting of seven or eight teams
• The groups are: Shell T&T (Dolphin, Hibiscus, Poinsettia, Colibri), Lok Jack GSB (Entrepreneurs, Innovators, Global), First Citizens (Paris, El Tucuche), Massy Foundation ( Continuous Growth, Collaboration), Guardian Group (Trendsetters, Masterminds), PwC and 3Stone
• Teams are comprised of five students and a teacher who acts as a coach/guide
• Teams all start with the same amount of capital and are faced with a multitude of decisions. Based in a global workplace, the game positions players at the beginning of the development of the personal computer hardware industry
• Gameplay is organised into six decision-making periods that allow for team collaboration and analysis.
• Before the weekly decision deadline, all teams input and submit their decisions. The game then simulates three months of business activity based on individual team decisions and the impact of the decisions of competing teams.
• Teams are rated on a balanced scorecard approach, which encompasses 10 measures of performance
—Financial performance
—Investment in the future
—Human resource management
—Marketing effectiveness
—Manufacturing efficiency
—Market performance
—Wealth
—Asset management
—Financial risk
—Total Performance
• Similar to sports, the leaderboard creates excitement with potentially new leaders weekly
• The overall winner gets five full scholarships for the Arthur Lok Jack GSB Undergraduate programme. Partial scholarships are among the other prizes to be won.