Fostering entrepreneurship in Lebanon’s TVET sector

The ILO, with contributions from the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, is building capacity of TVET teachers through a number of workshops to mainstream entrepreneurship education at technical schools in Lebanon and equip youth with the required entrepreneurship skills.

خبر | ١٧ نوفمبر, ٢٠٢١

The ILO delivered a series of online and face-to-face capacity building workshops for teachers from TVET public institutions across Lebanon to foster entrepreneurship education through “Know About Business” (KAB) entrepreneurship education programme.

Four refresher workshops were held online in October 2021 to introduce 55 previously trained TVET teachers to the newly developed KAB online platform and provide refresher sessions on KAB material ahead of the school year 2021-2022. In addition, three workshops were held face-to-face to introduce the participants to ILO’s entrepreneurship business games.
“KAB is needed to help students think in an entrepreneurial manner and perhaps open businesses once they graduate. I have many students graduating from jewellery and fashion design courses with very little knowledge on how they could start and manage a successful business. KAB will give them more insights on how to operate and sustain a profitable business” – said Dina Mteirik, TVET teacher from Al-Amal technical institute.

The capacity building initiatives for teachers were further complemented by two awareness-raising workshops for 34 school directors to introduce them to the KAB programme and its related online tool, and to encourage them to support and facilitate the implementation of the KAB programme in TVET institutions.

“The awareness workshop changed attitudes and encouraged many of my fellow directors to implement the programme in their schools. They understood the benefits it will bring to students and to schools as the KAB could elevate and modernise the TVET educational curricula” – said Hassan Hleyhel, director of Institut Pedagogique National de l’Enseignement Technique in Tripoli.



The ”Know About Business” entrepreneurship education programme was developed by the ILO to teach entrepreneurship in technical and vocational education and training institutions as well as in secondary and higher education institutions. The programme seeks to prepare in-school youth for the transition from school to the world of work by allowing them to discover and develop entrepreneurial competencies and basic business management skills through a range of games and exercises.

To date, and under the framework of Skill-Up Lebanon project, 63 technical and vocational teachers were trained on the KAB entrepreneurship education programme in 2019 and 2020. However, due to consecutive lockdowns and the rising challenges imposed by COVID-19, in addition to economic crisis and political unrest, the implementation of the KAB programmes in classrooms was disrupted. As a response, the ILO embarked on the digitalisation of the KAB programme to allow TVET institutions introduce entrepreneurship education in their curricula and instructors to remotely provide KAB modules, when necessary, in the academic year 2021-2022.

“The online workshop was much needed since the implementation of the programme was interrupted several times due to closures of schools and the shift to online learning. The online version of the KAB will allow us to continue teaching the material in case schools are closed again,” Mteirik said. “The entrepreneurship games will keep students interested and entertained, and will help us develop the entrepreneurial qualities and skills of our students,” she added.


Mainstreaming entrepreneurship education at Directorate General of Vocational and Technical Education and Training (DG TVET) technical schools in Lebanon and equipping the youth with the required entrepreneurship skills is supported by Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation under Skill-Up Lebanon (Phase II) – a development cooperation project under ILO-Norway Special Agreement. The partnership agreement contributes to rolling out the ILO Global Programme on Skills and Lifelong Learning (GPSL3) that aims to provide coordinated and enhanced support to ILO constituents to develop and implement new generation skills and lifelong learning ecosystems for decent Future of Work.