FIRST Citizens has partnered with the National Secondary Schools Entrepreneurship Competition (NSSEC) programme to encourage entrepreneurship among youths.

In a media release on Wednesday the bank said the partnership will be through an educational gamification model. The initiative, which was launched recently, saw students from over 70 secondary schools in a six-week programme aimed at exposing student teams to the rigours of setting up and running a business.

The title policy of the programme is “Entrepreneurship is the driver of economic diversification in Trinidad and Tobago.” The release said the partnership will be conducted by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, which highlighted that entrepreneurial activity rates increase with levels of education.

“This study recommended that our country’s policy objective should seek to integrate entrepreneurship in a cross-disciplinary manner across the education system with a focus on secondary, vocational and university education programmes, as individuals who have been exposed to entrepreneurship education and training tend to have higher start-up rates and to be more successful in their attempts” the release said.

The partnership will also teach participants how to navigate various scenarios that can both negatively and positively affect businesses. The online entrepreneurial training is interactive and strategy-based.

The bank's head of brand and marketing Gillian Benjamin encouraged participants at the opening ceremony to maximise every opportunity offered in the programme to better themselves and by extension the country.