With entrepreneurship the buzzword on city campuses, it’s time to teach the teachers how to groom the future job creators.

National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN), a not-for-profit initiative by Wadhwani Foundation aimed to inspire, educate and support entrepreneurs, has started a course for the faculty of member-colleges to help them teach students how to become entrepreneurs.

“The course has been a learning experience. We learnt new methods of teaching and unlearnt some of the techniques we employ now,” said Deepak Khaitan, who teaches in St Xavier’s College, Calcutta.

The course, comprising five modules, is spread over a year and provides tips on how to design, develop and teach comprehensive campus-based entrepreneurship programmes.

Over 13 senior faculty members from 11 colleges in Calcutta, including Asutosh College, St Xavier’s College, Globsyn Business School, Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, NIPS School of Hotel Management, NSHM Knowledge Academy and International School of Business, are attending the course, whose modules are taught across the country.

The course has been designed in collaboration with the Stanford Technology Ventures Program of Stanford University and Nadathur S. Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning of Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.

“About 80 per cent of the teachers in our network don’t know how to teach entrepreneurship. It is not something that can be taught through chalk and talk. One needs to recreate real-life situations so that students get a feel of what is involved in being an entrepreneur,” said Laura Parkin, executive director, NEN.

The course provides lessons on using case studies and role-playing to teach students. Exercises and games designed by the Stanford School of Design will try to simulate real-life situations.

“Entrepreneurship cannot be taught in the classroom. One needs to think out of the box and this course encourages that,” said Parkin.

Two batches of teachers from across the country are taking part in the course, which costs Rs 60,000. The participants can apply for sponsorship to Wadhwani Foundation.

After each module, the participants are expected to return to their colleges and implement the tools they learnt.“After implementing the first two modules in college, I have seen a change in the interest level among students,” said Ishita Dutta Roy, who teaches economics at Eastern Institute for Integrated Learning in Management.