Learning Business Skills Through Junior Achievement
Junior Achievement is an international movement to educate young people about business and economics for the purpose of helping them prepare to succeed in the world economy. The organization is the largest of its kind.
Junior Achievement has gone through different stages in its development. It was started by the business leader, Horace Moses and Theodore Vail, and Senator Murray Crane in 1919 in Springfield, Massachusetts. The organization started with a small number of children aged ten to twelve. For more than 50 years, Junior Achievement programs met after school as a group of business clubs. But in 1975, Junior Achievement began to offer classes during school hours. Many more young people joined the organization once it began to teach business skills as part of the school day. In 2004, Junior Achievement Worldwide was formed.
The Junior Achievement programs teach about businesses, how they are organized, and how products are made and sold. The programs also teach about the American and world economics and business operations. Young people can learn how entrepreneurship works by operating their own companies. For instance, the students develop a product and sell shares in their company. They use their money to buy the materials they need to make their product, which they then sell. Finally, they return the profits to the people who bought shares in the company. It is reported that in the United States alone, there are more than 22,000 places that hold Junior Achievement events currently. According to Junior Achievement, about 287,000 volunteers support its programs around the world.