PSS to create junior achievement program for high school students

The CNMI Public School System, in collaboration with the Northern Marianas College and the Commonwealth Development Authority, will create a junior achievement program that will promote entrepreneurship among high school students.

Board of Education member Galvin Deleon Guerrero said the program’s objective is to cultivate work-readiness, entrepreneurship, and financial literacy among students by giving them practical experience in running a business.

While the junior achievement system offers many programs from kindergarten through high school, he said the focus this year will be on high school students through the Junior Achievement Company Program.

The JA Company Program encompasses business, entrepreneurship, and economics curriculum for students in grades 9 through 12. It emphasizes business content while providing a strong focus on social studies, mathematics, reading, and writing skills.

Students under the program are encouraged to use innovative thinking to learn business skills that support positive attitudes as they explore and enhance their career aspirations.

Based on the program’s curriculum, through a variety of hands-on activities and technological supplements designed to support different learning styles, students develop a better understanding of the relationship between what they learn in school and their successful participation in a global economy.

The program is a series of 12 meetings and is recommended for after-school hours with average time for each meeting lasting 90 to 120 minutes. It is also strategically developed to align with academic content areas. The program provides interactive, take-home materials, including access to an online career assessment.

“We’re very excited to launch the JA program again in the Northern Marianas. With the help of CDA, NMC, the Guam chapter of Junior Achievement, the Saipan Chamber of Commerce, the entire business community, and, of course, PSS, we are confident that the program will help our students become productive members of their local and global economies,” said Deleon Guerrero, himself an NMC official coordinating the efforts for NMC.

He said the program will be offered to PSS high school students-the target population. It will serve as an extra-curricular program held after school hours.

NMC, meantime, will provide logistical support such as printing and copying documents for the program.

Deleon Guerrero said other than the start-up kit for each student company, which is being funded by federal funds for innovative programs, the program will be self-funded by student companies as they sell shares for their companies.

The NMI JA program will be coordinated with the Guam chapter of the junior achievement program.