Measuring Mechanism for Entrepreneurship Development Programme: A Study with special reference to Tamil Nadu

Abstract

Developing Entrepreneurship has become a movement in India in the recent years. Entrepreneurship Development Programmes have been considered as an effective instrument for developing Entrepreneurship in the countryside. Hundreds of EDPs are conducted by various organizations to impart entrepreneurial training to participants in thousands. Though the EDPs are conducted with the genuine intention of grooming entrepreneurs, more often than not the programmes do not yield the desired results. It is that the EDPs face many problems such as Trainees are not motivated by the trainers to start their own enterprises, ED Organizations lack in commitment and sincerity in conducting the EDPs, The antithetic attitude of supporting agencies like banks and financial institutions, Selection of wrong trainees, etc. As long as problems like these exist, one can not expect EDPs to be effective. The effectiveness of EDPs can be gauged through the qualitative evaluation of EDPs. An EDP has three phases viz., a) Pre-Training phase includes activities and preparations required to launch the training programme. Training phase tries to bring desirable change in the behavior of trainees and the Post-Training phase involves assessment to judge how far the objectives of the programmes have been achieved. As recommended by the behavioral scientists this study intends to use some criteria to assess the effectiveness of EDPs in motivating the entrepreneurs such as Activity level of respondents, New enterprise established, Total investment made, Investments in fixed assets made, Number of people employed, Number of jobs created, Increase in Profit, Increase in sales, Quality of product / service improved, Quicker repayment of loan, etc.