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Guidance supporting Europe’s aspiring entrepreneurs
Policy and practice to harness future potential

Role models underpin most successful guidance-based interventions in this
field. However, these are too few despite their benefits being clear.
Entrepreneurs’ own accounts of their career journeys inspire young people,
especially those with lower levels of educational attainment, who tend to respond
very positively to the presentations of entrepreneurs and their journeys. The role
models themselves also gain from the experience.

Guidance building entrepreneurial foundations and skills
Guidance offered in IVET can also play a role in helping students build a
foundation for entrepreneurial activity. Such guidance can help students develop
a sense of initiative, confidence and a ‘can-do’ attitude. This type of support
provides a taste of being an entrepreneur without going into ‘business
mechanics’. Alongside this it is crucial that teachers and guidance practitioners
also inform about the various risks involved in becoming an entrepreneur to
provide the students with a realistic landscape for their career orientation.
Innovation camps and a range of different mini-company approaches help
students develop business mechanics; they allow students to experience how
companies are actually launched and operated. Business planning/ideas
competitions are often used alongside both innovation camps and mini-company
programmes to motivate young people taking part in these programmes.
Private sector involvement is crucial for innovation camps and mini-
companies. Their involvement is imperative in terms of providing sponsorship but
also through the ‘free of charge’ non-formal guidance they provide. To keep
entrepreneurs and private sector involved, the programmes must also remain
practical and action-oriented; private sector interest tends to decline when
programmes become too ‘academic’.
The mini-company approach in IVET is well researched. The business start-
up rates of mini-company participants are typically twice as high as those for non-
participants. Studies across the world show similar results, demonstrating that
the approach works regardless of the cultural or economic context.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that under-achieving students can excel in
mini-company programmes, succeeding in practical assignments such as sales.
Often these students make a connection between the academic curriculum and
what they wish to discover about the workplace. Mini-companies help them
broaden their horizons and allow them to develop skills and knowledge pertinent
to the world of work.

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