In the new era we can gain exceptional insights into emerging opportunities for TVET education in the frame of the global economy, and deep understanding of the skills needed by the new generation of students. According to the UNESCO discussion paper, the term ‘entrepreneurial learning’ have broader understanding of the competences as a part of the future life and work of TVET students. Entrepreneurs have been playing a pivotal role in innovation, job creation, economic growth and social well-being for more than 40 years. Unfortunately, the majority of TVET organizations and vocational education organizations have no business education and students can find it only in business schools. 

Times change and now we have to admit that without entrepreneurial education our students won’t be successful in the future. In 2018 UNESCO-UNEVOC had a Virtual Conference of Entrepreneurial learning elicited a multiplicity of perspectives in what entrepreneurial learning means for TVET. Inspired by a quotation ‘Two key dimensions of the modern workplace, innovation and entrepreneurship, must be addressed in TVET programming to ensure a flexible workforce that is constantly learning and adapting.’ (CARICOM, 2014), we claim that we lose sight of one of the major skills for TVET students - entrepreneurship. 

‘Entrepreneurial competences are commonly viewed as a mix of knowledge, skills and attitudes, including self-confidence, networking, understanding risk, working with others, creativity, a sense of initiative, problem-solving, the ability to marshal resources, and financial and technological knowledge’ (OECD, 2018a; UN, 2016). Different organizations support the idea to build entrepreneurship ecosystems to support the 2030 Agenda (UN, 2015) and the Sustainable Development Goals (UN, 2016), and there are a number of guidance documents to steer development (UNCTAD, 2015). 

We mention that the majority of research pay less attention to the entrepreneurial skills in TVET. 

In Russia, there are no good research on this topic, but there is a trend towards the mandatory of the entrepreneurship training. Our TVET organization leaders are looking for a good course for their lecturers that can help them to understand how to teach entrepreneurship. In this case, we conducted research and tried to find the best curriculum for teaching lecturers this competence. Following this, our research seeks to capture the opportunity to develop ecosystem which can teach students with entrepreneurial competencies.

The study was conducted in several regions of Russia that was among the first to try to find new ways of teaching entrepreneurship. The research conducted in different types of regions: from small towns to big cities. The data was collected primarily through Longitudinal study (2 years), which included analysis of students’ competencies, teachers’ skills, entrepreneurial level of TVET and the need of entrepreneurial education. We made fifteen interviews with TVET organization leaders and thirty-four interviews with teaching staff. We also add students’ poll about their attitude to entrepreneurship and tried to identify the lack of competencies (especially, when the majority of them are preparing for World Skills Championships). Twenty-one interviews were conducted with business and industry which located in the same regions and connected with the flagship universities specialization. Our interview questions were grouped into three main blocks and elicit: (1) how the interviewees define the problems of teaching entrepreneurs and how, in their view, it should be changed; (2) what the main barriers they have (from the teachers and from the students), and what may or may not be problematic about them; (3) what has changed with the introduction of new educational program for teachers and students. These questions helped us to understand the main problems in the sphere of the entrepreneurial learning. Based on the results we made a training program “practical-oriented approach to entrepreneurship training’ for teachers. We took three TVET organizations and made a pilot program for teaching stuff. In Russia, we didn’t have such programs and we didn’t know how it will work. During a year we fixed the results of students where the teacher learnt how to teach entrepreneurship. The main purpose was to make a good program which can help TVET organizations to keep up with the times. Due to the implementation of this program, the TVET organisations increased the level of entrepreneurial behaviour among students.

This study reaffirms and enriches the understanding of entrepreneurial learning in TVET organizations. There are several assumptions regarding the new way of learning that conflict with the practices established and valued by the lecturers. Moreover, we faced the problem of controversial points of view on the way of learning with practical-oriented approach to entrepreneurship training. More than 76% of teachers in TVET organizations have never had their own business projects. At the same time, despite the differences, we observed no attempts at open resistance for implementation of the new way of learning. However, based on the interviews and intercommunion with TVET organizations we identified the best way of entrepreneurial learning. In addition, these interviews helped us to recognize the main problem in educational process: lack of entrepreneurial competencies among teachers; lack of believe that students can do this (from both sides: students and teachers); reluctance to learn among teachers. With the help of this new program we killed two birds with one stone: help teachers to understand entrepreneurial learning (some of them want to be an entrepreneur after the pilot program) and students to gain the necessary competencies for future life and work. In several years after implementation of this program we will expect increasing the number of regional successful entrepreneurs among TVET students and graduates to 25%; improving the quality of entrepreneurial education at different levels; formation of the positive image of Russian TVET and vocational education abroad.

CARICOM. 2014. CARICOM Regional TVET Strategy for Workforce Development and Economic Competitiveness. URL: http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/FIELD/Santiago/pdf/CARICOM.pdf Daniele Morselli (2015) Enterprise Education in Vocational Education. A Comparative Study Between Italy and Australia, Palgrave Macmillan, London URL: URL:https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137552617 EASSESS. 2018. EntreAssess transnational EU project on entrepreneurial assessment methods, tools and model. URL:www.entreassess.com Elin McCallum, Bantani Education (2019) Entrepreneurial learning in TVET. Discussion paper. URL:https://unevoc.unesco.org/pub/entrepreneurial_learning_discussion_paper1.pdf Entrepreneurial learning in TVET Report of the UNESCO-UNEVOC Virtual conference (2019) UNESCO-UNEVOC TVeT Forum, 26 November to 7 December 2018 Moderated by Elin McCallum. URL: https://unevoc.unesco.org/pub/virtualconference-23-eng.pdf Sehwa Wu, Carol Yeh-Yun Lin (2019) Innovation and Entrepreneurship in an Educational Ecosystem. Cases from Taiwan. Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. URL: URL:https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9445-5 Tim Mazzarol, Sophie Reboud (2020) Workbook for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Theory, Practice and Context (Fourth Edition) Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. URL: URL:https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9416-4 UN. 2015. Transforming Our World - The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. URL: https:// sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/21252030%20Agenda%20for%20Sustainable%20 Development%20web.pdf UN. 2016. Entrepreneurship for development - Report of the Secretary-General. Seventy-first session of the United Nations General Assembly. URL:https://unctad.org/meetings/en/SessionalDocuments/a71d210_ en.pdf UNESCO. 2015. Recommendation concerning Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET). URL: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000245178https://en.unesco.org/themes/skills-work-and-life/ tvet-recommendation