Effectiveness of Entrepreneurship Development Programmes among S&T Graduates

Abstract

These days, most educational institutions, business schools, training agencies, ED cells, industry consortiums, associations of entrepreneurs, business incubators, government development agencies and funding agencies conduct entrepreneurship development programmes (EDPs). Many such programmes are available for graduates from commerce and business administration disciplines. However, under the effort of NSTEDB’s NIMAT projects, funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, today’s Science and Technology (S&T) graduates too have exposure to standard one-month Entrepreneurship Development Programmes (EDPs). The programmes have been carefully designed to provide full exposure of entrepreneurship to budding CEOs. This paper takes a genuine look at the effectiveness of some of these EDPs in helping the participants launch and nurture their entrepreneurial ventures within six to nine months of attending the EDPs. What percentages of the participants are successful? What makes them successful? Thus, are EDPs actually effective among S&T graduates?