Secondary school students to be encouraged to form consortiums & pitch business ideas to Govt’s development bank

President Dr Irfaan Ali has revealed that secondary school students, particularly fifth and sixth formers, will be encouraged to form consortiums and develop business ideas to pitch for funding from the soon-to-be-launched zero-interest development bank.

Speaking during an interview with a panel of journalists today, the Head of State explained that the students would be educated on these and related financial literacy topics.

“One of the things that we want to do, now that we have the development bank, is to go into the schools and teach the children in sixth form, those leaving sixth form or fifth form, as to how they can come together in consortiums, so building the mentality of consortiums at a very early stage in their lives, and then see what business ideas they can come up with, and help them, through the development bank, to finance those business ideas up to the limit of that bank,” he said.

The ultimate goal, he explained, is to foster an innovative society and cultivate a new generation of forward thinkers.

The development bank, which will be launched next year, will offer loans up to $3 million at zero interest and without collateral.

The initiative is intended to remove long-standing barriers that have locked thousands of entrepreneurs, particularly young people, out of the financial system.

Beyond the initial $3 million zero-interest facility, the government has already secured agreements with commercial banks to leverage those funds, allowing small business owners to an additional $7 million in financing, at subsidised interest rates as low as 3.5 per cent.