Page 27 - guidance-supporting-europe-s-aspiring-entrepreneurs-policy-and-practice-to-harness-future-potential

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

individuals for the future, an idea promoted by the Oslo Agenda for
Entrepreneurship Education (2006).
To date, HE institutions and their formal career guidance services have been
much more active than IVET establishments in supporting entrepreneurship
learning, even though fewer than half of HE students are exposed to
entrepreneurship learning opportunities.
While recent EU policies on VET and HE have emphasised the importance
of career guidance, there appears to be a gap between formal careers guidance
and the entrepreneurship agenda, possibly accounting for the lack of formal
careers guidance for entrepreneurship and the array of non-formal guidance in
place. Guidance provided through non-formal channels is also more widespread
across Europe than formal guidance. Non-formal guidance still lacks consistency
in terms of its quality and number of activities on offer across Member States.

Engaging young people in entrepreneurial activities
The research identifies a number of lessons for guidance in engaging young
people in entrepreneurship learning and related activities. Awareness raising and
information giving (i.e. providing printed and digital information and guidance on
becoming an entrepreneur) is still the most common method of engagement for
VET and HE institutions across Europe. However, while such methods are
common and have an important part to play in information-dissemination, they
may not necessarily be the most effective method of engaging students in
entrepreneurial learning. Non-formal guidance methods, utilising the ‘power of
recommendation’ in the form of student ambassadors and student led clubs and
networks, prove very successful at informing, and thereby engaging, students in
entrepreneurship learning. In some universities, up to 80% of learners have been
engaged through this method.
Awareness-raising through taster sessions about entrepreneurship provide
an alternative method for informing young people about entrepreneurial concepts
and approaches. Guidance services have an important role to play in guiding
interested young people from such familiarisation activities towards
entrepreneurship education that will allow them to deepen their knowledge and
develop the entrepreneurial ability to identify and capitalise on business
opportunities, to launch a business and manage its growth.
Although some of the newer media methods are criticised by some, case
studies indicate that social networking sites are another successful way of
reaching out to the wider student population, and several universities are looking
further into this form of recruitment. Some online-based guidance platforms have
been created for students and aspiring entrepreneurs to assist networking, and to

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