The National Centre for Cooperative Education (NCCE) under the aegis of National Cooperative Union of India (NCUI) organizes education and training programs for capacity development of cooperators at the national level. This year, NCCE organized a Refresher Course on “Cooperative Policy and Development” for the faculty of educational institutions. There were around 40 faculty members from universities of 15 states across India.
The course aimed to share knowledge and the latest information about cooperatives, their values and principles with the faculty members and to reach out to youth and raise awareness about the cooperative business model.
Shree Padmanabhan from ICA-AP was invited to deliver a lecture on Cooperatives for Youth and Other Weaker Sections - Viable option for Empowerment and Employment. His lecture focused on the activities of three ICA-AP committees that are directly involved with youth and educational institutions:
- ICA-AP Committee on Cooperatives in Educational Institutions
- ICA-AP Committee on Cooperative Research
- ICA-AP Committee on Youth Cooperation
The participants were impressed by the activities that were carried out by the three committees. They were inspired by two case studies on campus cooperatives from Japan and Malaysia which showed how students were coming together and creating consumer cooperative stores within their schools and universities. In Japan, a university cooperative is a consumer cooperative with undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty members as its members. 90% of the national universities have university cooperatives.
National Federation of University Co-operative Associations (NFUCA, ICA member in Japan) is the federation of university cooperatives. Some of the activities pursued by university cooperative members of NFUCA include general stores (stationery, IT devices, daily necessities); bookstores (general books, study guidebooks); services (driving school, domestic and overseas travel); mutual aid and insurance; student housing; and students’ learning and growth.
The school cooperatives in Malaysia were established as a pilot project in nine schools in 1968. The number of school cooperatives has grown to 2,678 in 2018 with 1,607,595 members. The school cooperatives operate under three main sectors: consumer, services, and agriculture and are involved in the following businesses:
- Supply and sale of school uniforms and other products,
- Retail stores in schools to sell consumer products,
- Organize tours designed and developed by students.
ANGKASA (ICA member), the apex cooperative organization in Malaysia, plays an important role in promoting school cooperatives by conducting administrative and management courses to equip young members so that they can learn different skills and get practical engagement in campus cooperatives.
The participants also expressed interest in experimenting with the Global Cooperative Entrepreneurs (GCE) program within their universities to connect youth with the cooperative business model. The underlying objective of the GCE program, an initiative by ICA global and regional offices, is to set up an experimental global community of mentors, mutualize tools and resources and implement activities for cooperative entrepreneurship. There are five elements to the program:
- Knowledge of cooperatives
- Mobilizing Youth
- Business model canvas for cooperatives
- Support structure of cooperatives
- Setting up a cooperative
The lecture concluded with discussions on how to sustain campus cooperatives and how to encourage more young people to join the cooperative. Educational Institutions should teach about cooperatives, organize workshops/ activities to involve students, and encourage students to do research into cooperatives and come up with cooperative business ideas, and support the business model.
