Page 60 - 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

learning should also raise individuals’ awareness of entrepreneurship as a career
choice, with the message being that ‘you can become not only an employee, but
also an entrepreneur’ (European Commission, 2004b, p. 6). Entrepreneurship is
today seen as a key competence for all, and is linked to individual's ability to turn
ideas into action. Such skills and attitudes are directly linked to concepts such as
creativity, sense of initiative, innovation, pro-activity, determination,
independence, responsibility, risk acceptance and the ability to plan and manage
projects.
Across Europe, entrepreneurship is being taught through four main
channels:
• as a separate subject/course/qualification, with a focus on learning the skills
and know-how of setting up and running a business, or having a more
theoretical focus;
• as an extra-curricular, usually voluntary/elective, subject;
• as a mainstream subject in the curriculum, typically focusing on the
development of transversal competences related to entrepreneurship such as
initiative, confidence and creativity;
• as a non-formal course delivered in the adult education or private sphere.
So far, entrepreneurship learning practice in Europe tends to be ad hoc.
Some schools provide no entrepreneurship education at all and most students do
not yet have the opportunity of taking part in entrepreneurship courses and
programmes (European Commission, 2004b; McCoshan et al., 2010). There are
pockets of excellence in terms of countries and individual schools, and other
education and training institutions, but overall the provision varies vastly in
quantity and quality. The main shortcoming is that entrepreneurship learning is
still not a mainstream part of the curriculum in most countries (European
Commission, 2004b; European Commission, 2006b; Mendibil, 2006), and
therefore ‘has relied heavily on the enthusiasm and commitment of individual
teachers and schools’ (McCoshan et al., 2010, p. ii). This also means that third
12
13
14
sector organisations, such as Ja-Ye ( ), Europen ( ) and Jade ( ), have

12
( ) JA-YE Europe is Europe’s largest provider of entrepreneurship education programmes, reaching
3.1 million students in 38 countries in 2009. Available from Internet: www.ja-ye.org [cited
03.09.2010].
13
( ) Europen is the worldwide practice firm network with over 5 500 practice firms in 42 countries. A
practice firm is a virtual company and a centre of vocational learning that runs like a ‘real’
business silhouetting a ‘real’ firm's business procedures, products and services. Each practice
firm trades with other practice firms. Available from Internet: http://cms.europen.info/ [cited
03.09.2010].
14
( ) JADE – the European Confederation of Junior Enterprises – is a non-profit international
umbrella organisation of enterprises established and managed by students. The junior
entrepreneurs (members of junior enterprises) are students who want to get practical experience
during their studies by developing their own professional projects and by offering different
consulting services, experiencing unique learning opportunities in the real business world. The

54