The Business Educators Australasia Plan Your Own Enterprise Competition (PYOE) encourages secondary school students to apply their business education to a real life scenario. Working individually or in small groups, participants are asked to devise a creative enterprise idea and submit a business plan, explaining how their great idea could become a profitable business.

For teachers, the competition is a valuable tool to enhance the business education curriculum and support them as they develop the next generation of business leaders. For students, it helps to build valuable work and life skills. The competition requires business insight, practical financial skills and a creative flair for problem solving.

Economics and Business Educators NSW runs the competition in NSW. To enter, students need to devise a creative enterprise idea and submit a 3500 word business plan, explaining how their great idea could become a profitable business. The competition has two divisions with fantastic prizes up for grabs:

• Division one – Open to individual student entries, submitted by students of any age, attending a registered secondary school.
• Division two – Group entries (maximum of six students), submitted by students of any age, attending a registered secondary school.

NSW entries are due by Friday 10 September 2021 (Term 3, Week 9). Post entries to Nicholas Ward, NSW PYOE Competition Coordinator, Economics and Business Educators NSW (EBE NSW), PO Box 699, Lidcombe NSW 1825. The top ten Division 1 and top five Division 2 entries will be invited to the NSW PYOE Award Ceremony in the September school holidays. All students who enter the competition receive a certificate and first, second and third in each division will win cash prizes and a prize for their school.

The winner from each division from each state and territory in Australia will proceed onto the National Awards Ceremony where the national winners will be announced.

This competition can be incorporated into assessment tasks for both Commerce and Business Studies. Click here for a sample assessment task. Email EBE NSW if you would like a Microsoft Word version of the sample assessment task.

Amanda Ritter has developed a unit of work based on the PYOE Competition which can be accessed here. The PYOE Competition could form the content for a Commerce “school – developed option” (see pages 48 and 49 in the NSW Education Standards Authority Commerce Year 7 – 10 Syllabus).

>> Full details are available in the 2021 PYOE competition brochure.

See the article available to EBE NSW members – “Student2Student: How to Overcome the Pitfalls of Business Planning” by Sarah Matthias (Division 1 Winner of CPA Australia Plan Your Own Enterprise Competition 2016) in “The EBE Journal – Journal of the Economics and Business Educators NSW” – Issue 2, 2016.

There is no cost to enter the competition.