Session Information
03 SES 10 B, Curriculum Change and Professional Development of Teachers
Parallel Paper Session
Contribution
Structural changes in the economy shifted Europe’s comparative advantage towards knowledge-based activities. These changes have led to opportunities for new entrepreneurial initiative, particularly in the area of services. Europe’s competitiveness, innovation and economic growth depend on being able to produce future leaders with the skills and attitudes to be entrepreneurial in their professional lives, whether by creating their own companies or innovating in larger organizations. Entrepreneurship education is the first and arguably the most important step for embedding an innovative culture in Europe (Wilson, 2008 ). If it is to make a success of the Lisbon strategy for growth and employment, Europe needs to stimulate the entrepreneurial mindsets of young people, encourage innovative business start-ups, and foster a culture that is friendlier to entrepreneurship and to the growth of small and medium-sized businesses (Group, 2008 ). The important role of education in promoting more entrepreneurial attitudes and behaviors, starting even at primary school, is now widely recognized. Since education and especially universities play a vital role in the transformation of economies and societies, the specific role of higher education institutions (HEIs) in fostering entrepreneurship is considered to be an appropriate topic of investigation, discourse and dissemination (Mitra, 2008 ). Education can help the development of entrepreneurship (Mitra & Manimala, 2008). Promoting entrepreneurial skills and attitudes education in entrepreneurship provides benefits to society even beyond their application to new business ventures. In a broad sense, entrepreneurship should be considered as a general attitude that can be usefully applied in all working activities and in everyday life, such as creativity and innovation (Sarri et al. 2010). Everyone may at some stage need to become an entrepreneur, or to display entrepreneurial behavior or to have the opportunity of creating his/her own business regardless of background or location (EU Commission, 2004). Entrepreneurship teaching in HEIs has expanded in recent years, with an increasing number of institutions offering entrepreneurship courses and a greater number of students attending them, both in North America and Europe. There has also been innovation in the teaching methods used, which increasingly emphasize experiential activities, the use of cases, the development of business strategy and the use of interactive computer technologies. The purpose of this study is to reveal the importance of the entrepreneurship courses in a Department of Primary Education. More specifically, the study focuses on the attitudes of students in a Department of Primary Education with respect to the importance of entrepreneurship education in the university as well as to record students’ willingness to get involved in entrepreneurship activities (i.e. starting up a new business, or taking over an existing one). Moreover, the study examines the possible different aspects on entrepreneurship matters between students that attended entrepreneurship courses and the ones who didn’t during their studies. Furthermore, the study is trying to investigate students’ attitudes about the term of entrepreneurship and about the level of absorption of all the necessary competences to promote and spread the idea of entrepreneurship to the new generations as future teachers in primary schools.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Final Report of the Expert Group (2004). “Education for Entrepreneurship”. Making progress in promoting entrepreneurial attitudes and skills through Primary and Secondary education. European Commission, Brussels. Final Report of the Expert Group (2008). Best Procedure Project: Entrepreneurship in Higher Education, Especially in non-Business studies. European Commission, Brussels. Gulikers, J., Bastiaens, T., & Kirschner, P. (2004). A five- dimensional framework for authentic assessment. Educational Technology Research and Development , pp. 67–85. Hoffmann, A., Vibholt, N. M., Larsen, M., & Moffett, M. L. (2008). Benchmarking Entrepreneurship Education across US,Canadian and Danish Universities. In J. Potter, Entrepreneurship and Higher Education (pp. 139-163). Paris: OECD Publications. Lans, T., & Gulikers, J. (2010). Assessing entrepreneurial competence in entrepreneurship education and training. In A. Fayolle, Handbook of Research in Entrepreneurship Education (pp. 54-67). Edward Elgar Publishing Limited. Mini-companies in Secondary Education, Best Procedure Project: Final Report of the Expert Group, September 2005. Mitra, J. (2008 ). Towards an Analytical Framework for Policy Development. In J. Potter, Entrepreneurship (pp. 17-44). Paris: OECD Publications. Mitra, J., & Manimala, M. J. (2008). Higher Education’s Role in Entrepreneurship and Economic Development. In J. Potter, Entrepreneurship and Higher Education (pp. 45-64). Paris: OECD Publications. Mulder, M. (2001). Competence development – some background thoughts. The Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension , pp. 147-158. Sarri K. K., Bakouros, L.I. & Petridou, E. (2010) "Entrepreneur training for creativity and innovation", Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 34 Iss: 3, pp.270 – 288. Wilson, K. (2008 ). Entrepreneurship Education in Europe. In J. Potter, Entrepreneurship and Higher Education (pp. 119-138). Paris : OECD Publications.
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