I’ve been teaching entrepreneurship courses in university for over five years. I’ve also launched and run a student entrepreneurship program on campus, co-led a startup incubator and founded three businesses of my own – all in the education space. I share this not because I want to toot my own horn, but rather because all of these experiences have had a strong influence on my approach to teaching, learning and education as a whole. Education is something I’m deeply passionate about and everything I’ve done throughout my career, including my business ventures, has been with the intent to make learning and teaching a better, more meaningful and a more productive experience.
I’m also the mother of three beautiful humans, who have continued to fuel my desire to make education better. There’s no shortage of criticism to the current education system, so I will not be going down that rabbit hole in this post. I will however say, that like many others who have written and spoken on this topic, I too , believe that our current mass education system – across the globe – is sadly outdated and does not prepare our children for the very complex, ever changing future that awaits them.
The debate on how we can make education better is also arduous. In my view, we only stand to gain by incorporating entrepreneurship across the education system. An entrepreneurial education will add tremendous value to learners by effectively preparing them to thrive and find purpose in the face of constant change and uncertainty.
The importance of entrepreneurship has been widely recognized by post-secondary institutions, especially. Most of you would be familiar with entrepreneurship programs and elective courses in colleges and universities. Some highschools have also started incorporating entrepreneurship, be it via elective courses or other programs. All of this has brought much value to students and their overall learning experience. I’ve discussed the impact it has had on my own life and career in a previous post.
The challenge however, is that the impact of entrepreneurship in education has mostly been measured by the economic value it creates. In other words, how many startups have resulted and how many jobs they’ve yielded. This is extremely limiting since the impact of entrepreneurship in schools goes well beyond these measures of success.
Rather, entrepreneurship should be seen as a transversal competence that can be applied in all areas of our lives.
This idea of entrepreneurship as a transversal competence is one that I really like. It is also why I never understood and found it frustrating that entrepreneurship is not a part of the education system from an early age. Children are naturally curious, creative and innovative. Why not continue to nurture those valuable traits through entrepreneurship? With my own children, I always look for ways to activate and nurture their entrepreneurial thinking, but am increasingly bothered by the fact there is close to none of that in their day to day learning at school.
So I embarked on a mission to better understand the state of entrepreneurship across all levels of education. There’s still much I have to learn, but this post is my attempt to summarize what I’ve got so far and also where I’m going from here.
Current state of entrepreneurship in education
So what have I learned by digging through the body of work on entrepreneurship in education? That its complicated. Of course.
I’m also now more convinced than ever that the impact entrepreneurship can have on children’s learning, far outweighs any implementation challenges we are currently facing.
As it turns out, and as is almost always the case, I am not the only one asking myself this question. There are many people out there who have dedicated their careers to studying entrepreneurship in education, particularly the adoption of entrepreneurship across all levels of curriculum. They also believe closer communication should be taking place between education and entrepreneurship and are looking for ways to build bridges between the two. Moreover, the European Commission (ever since 2006!) has identified a sense of initiative and entrepreneurship as one of the eight key competencies necessary for all members of a knowledge-based society (revised in 2018). (If you’re curious, the others are: literacy, languages, mathematics, science and technology, digital, personal, social and learning, civic competence, cultural awareness and expression).
So why has entrepreneurship not been broadly implemented across the curriculum? Below are some of the main challenges faced at the moment.
- Definition challenge! There is a serious lack of consensus as to what entrepreneurship in education actually means. Some consider the purpose of entrepreneurship in education to be: teaching students to start companies. Others, like to look at it from a mindset perspective (ie.problem-identification, action-taking, collaboration etc.) The latter if often referred to as enterprise education. There are also those who use the term entrepreneurship education to refer to both teaching how to start a business and developing the mindset of a business founder. And if this wasn’t confusing enough, some also talk about entrepreneurial learning or if you live if Finland, you would be talking about internal entrepreneurial education (mindset) and external entrepreneurial education (business creation). Not to mention that all of this is primarily discussed at the postsecondary level and not in earlier levels of education. I’m certainly starting to understand why primary and elementary teachers haven’t exactly jumped on the opportunity to make entrepreneurship a part of their curriculum. What would they be teaching anyway? And how?
- Pedagogical framework challenge! Even if primary or elementary educators wanted to include entrepreneurship into their teaching, there is also a lack of clarity around what it is they should be teaching towards. What exactly are the competencies that teachers should be developing through entrepreneurship education? Currently, entrepreneurship classes are mostly seen as separate add-ons rather than something that can be incorporated across the curriculum. The good news is that in 2015 the Directorate General of Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (DG EMPL) through the European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC) launched the Entrepreneurship Competence Study which has put forward the most comprehensive Entrepreneurship Competence Framework I’ve come across, to date. The naturally emerging question now that we more or less know what entrepreneurial competencies are and what we are aiming for, is HOW do we teach these aptitudes?
- Assessment problems! Then there is the problem of what do we assess when it comes to entrepreneurial education? How do we know that the students are learning, what exactly they are learning and what do we need to do to get them where they should be? Starting a successful business in primary or elementary school is not a realistic expectation, so evaluating them based on that is not really an option. Some common methods that have been used so far are diaries, observation, critical event interviews and think-aloud exercises. When it comes to entrepreneurial education specifically, it has also been suggested that emotions also play an important role in how entrepreneurs learn. Emotions are key in attributing meaning to our learning experiences. As such, a novel way to assess entrepreneurial competencies has been put forward. That is, assessing emotional activities during education, as opposed to competencies achieved after education.
Entrepreneurial education
So what did I take-away from my deep-dive into this topic? That when it comes to mass adoption of entrepreneurship across all levels of the education system, we may still be early, but we are certainly on a good path. I of course, have much to learn still, but I do know that despite the existing challenges, there is a growing body of evidence supporting entrepreneurship adoption across all levels of education.
Furthermore, there is also growing evidence and awareness that entrepreneurial skills, knowledge and attitudes can be learned and in turn, benefit society as a whole. How?
Entrepreneurial education can empower individuals to actively participate in their environment, manage their own lives and careers and to start creating value, be it social, cultural or economic.
You would have noticed that I used the term entrepreneurial education in this section. From my readings, it seems to be the term most widely adopted and it encompasses both the wide definition (mindset and abilities focused) and the narrow definition (business creation).
So what is entrepreneurial education (to me, at least)? It is an education system focused on creating value for others. Why? Because as per my own experience and as pointed out by many scholars in this field, I strongly believe that at its core, entrepreneurship is about creating value.
Therefore, entrepreneurial education is about training learners’ ability and willingness to create value for others.
As defined by the Danish Foundation for Education, “Entrepreneurship is when you act upon opportunities and ideas and transform them into value for others. The value that is created can be financial, cultural or social.”
Subsequently, in their view, entrepreneurial education is: “Content, methods and activities supporting the creation of knowledge, competencies and experiences that make it possible for students to initiate and participate in entrepreneurial value creating processes”.
Creating value is a core competence that we will all need to develop in our lives, no matter the career path we choose to go on. Furthermore, defining entrepreneurial education this way, also clearly implies that starting a new business venture is but one of many different ways to create value.
Now that I’ve shared some of my learnings on this topic and we’ve settled on the terminology and definition of entrepreneurial education, there are many other elements to be considered. My exploration on this topic has only started. I will continue to share my learnings in upcoming post.
There are of course, still many differing definitions of entrepreneurship and therefore what entrepreneurship is and what it should look like in education. I’m not sure a full consensus will ever be reached, nor that we need to. If we are to keep learning, we ought to keep questioning and constantly re-evaluating.
That said, I thought it was important for me to set the stage for my own view and the perspective I take when I speak of entrepreneurship, especially when applied to education.
