USAID ADEPT Partnership Quarterly Report April – June 2016

The partnership aims to enhance entrepreneurship and management education at YEco through various initiatives. During the third quarter of its third implementation year, ADEPT continued to support YEco's efforts to revise its MBA program. An MBA Program consulting team from Indiana University visited YEco from May 10th to 20th to assess the program and develop recommendations for its revision. The team interviewed Management Studies Department faculty, students, and senior administration to identify areas for improvement, including degree content, structure, promotion and recruitment, admissions, orientation, quality assurance, and graduate follow-up. Based on the consulting team's recommendations, YEco plans to streamline its MBA degree, shift student grading towards increased participation and project scores, and position itself to implement more specialized MBA programs, including entrepreneurship development. YEco also intends to conform its MBA program to best-practices for international accreditation and establish an internal quality feedback system. In addition to the MBA program revision, ADEPT supported YEco's efforts to enhance entrepreneurship education through various initiatives. KSB Entrepreneurship and Management professors provided four sessions of an integrated entrepreneurship seminar at YEco, focusing on increasing students' entrepreneurship knowledge and innovative capacity. The seminar was well-received, with good attendance and impressed the IU professors with the quality of interactions. ADEPT also sponsored YEco's travel to the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business regional conference in Singapore, where YEco accreditation leads met with similar educators and administrators from other universities in the region. YEco now intends to pursue AACSB membership to receive deeper consultation from the Association. YEco is also pursuing a quality certification from the ASEAN University Network (AUN) as a stepping-stone in its broader accreditation efforts. During the past period, ADEPT contracted partner Project Hub Yangon (PHY) conducted several student activities with YEco, including an internship in entrepreneurship and an entrepreneurship and informational seminar for 1st-year MBA students. The internship provided students with rich experiential learning, and the seminar was well-attended with 108 students. The larger number of students provided 21 teams for the Business Idea Competition (BIC), which will conclude in the first week of July. Overall, ADEPT's efforts have supported progress toward Subactivity 1.2a and Subactivity 1.3a.1, enhancing entrepreneurship and management education at YEco. The partnership has also supported progress toward Subactivity 1.2b, with YEco pursuing a quality certification from the ASEAN University Network (AUN) and accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). The quarterly report highlights the progress made by ADEPT and YEco in enhancing entrepreneurship and management education in Myanmar. The partnership has demonstrated its commitment to supporting the development of entrepreneurship and management education in the region, and its efforts have contributed to the growth and development of YEco's MBA program. The report also highlights the importance of partnerships and collaborations in achieving development goals. ADEPT's partnership with YEco has enabled the university to access expertise and resources that would not have been available otherwise, and has facilitated the sharing of best practices and knowledge between the two institutions.