It seems obvious at first glance that the creation of new entrepreneurs should form the backbone of any strategy to boost entrepreneurship in a country or specific entrepreneurial ecosystem. Yet in most countries the policy approach and general understanding of what makes for effective entrepreneurship education is uneven and vastly under-resourced. Exposure to entrepreneurial activity is often dependent on having individual teachers passionate about the subject and it is not uncommon for young people to complete their education without ever considering entrepreneurship as a potential career path for themselves.
In collaboration with Youth Business International (YBI), GEN recently published the Youth Entrepreneurship Framework which included 18 recommendations related to entrepreneurship education and increasing opportunities for young people to become entrepreneurs. In this deep dive we delve further into examples of entrepreneurship education in practice and explore different features and methodologies that are catering to the next generation of entrepreneurs.
There is considerable evidence that cultivating a robust pipeline of skilled individuals is crucial for developing higher levels of ecosystem value but our research has found a number of blockages that limit the number of young people launching their own startups. Through analysis of existing support programs and consultation with leading experts we have identified several barriers to young people becoming entrepreneurs that we have grouped into three main categories: self-belief, skills, and opportunity.
Boosting self-belief
Becoming an entrepreneur is a career path that often does not seem immediately obvious to school pupils who may lack exposure to immediate role models and experience of startup culture. Furthermore, many pupils lack the belief that founding a business is something that they are personally capable of, which can be especially pronounced amongst young people from disadvantaged economic backgrounds or minority communities who face added barriers to engaging in entrepreneurial activity.
In order to shatter these barriers, there are several approaches being taken by policymakers around the world. Global campaigns like GEW are an important step in exposing millions of people each year to the magnetism of entrepreneurship. Likewise, the Be an Entrepreneur program in Spain is working to inculcate entrepreneurial thinking in students at secondary education level by exposing them to real-world entrepreneurs in their classroom. This provides students with first-hand insights into the entrepreneurial journey and demystifies the steps they would need to take. The Cascais Entrepreneurial Schools program is another program that exposes school children from the age of 7 to the entrepreneurial process and ensures that every student receives expert-led careers guidance tailored to the unique entrepreneurial journey.
Crucially schools need to tailor their materials to ensure that they are relatable to the lived experiences of their students. The RYSE program in Malaysia has excelled at this by using entrepreneurial role models from diverse programs to boost entrepreneurship and employability amongst young people. It is also important for schools and policymakers to entice young people into taking their first steps into entrepreneurship by participating in programs and events. One effective method for doing this has been showcased in Ireland where the Best Young Entrepreneur Competition was set up with a fund of €2 million up for grabs.
Nurturing talent
It remains the case that in many parts of the world the teaching and development of enterprise skills is not delivered effectively within the education system. Moreover, young people often lack opportunities to develop practical entrepreneurial skills in a professional setting. This is compounded by the fact there is a lack of entrepreneurial mindset and skills amongst teachers themselves. The net result of this is that young people face a post-code lottery where those who are lucky to have an entrepreneurial teacher develop skills and those who aren’t miss out entirely.
Several countries such as Croatia, North Macedonia and Malta have sought to address these challenges by embedding entrepreneurship within the school curriculum. This should be done at all levels of the education system and should include both the direct teaching of entrepreneurship and the embedding of entrepreneurial skills across all aspects of learning. One of the most notable examples of this is the YES for Wales Strategy which employs a comprehensive framework to boost youth entrepreneurship and prioritized embedding entrepreneurial learning within the curriculum with a focus on skills and worked to develop and disseminate effective learning resources such as the Dynamo Curriculum Material.
Extracurricular activities are a key compenent in ensuring that school pupils receive practical experience which is why the Entrepreneurship Through Education program in Malta grants of up to €5,000 to schools and colleges to support the implementation of projects that would provide young people with entrepreneurial experience. Similarly, the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs scheme offers a unique opportunity for young people to benefit from on-the-job training with a host company in a foreign country.
Educating the educators is clearly a critical factor in ensuring the success of these policies which is why the Entrepreneurial Learning strategy of North Macedonia included resources to deliver entrepreneurial learning competencies for teachers with continuous teacher development and training provided across their careers. This was also a focus of the South East European Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning which sought to develop networks of entrepreneurship teachers across 8 countries in order to share materials and best practice.
Unlocking opportunity
One of the pivotal insights that came out of our consultation with youth entrepreneurs and experts in the field was that there is a missing link in the chain between skills development that take place in schools and universities and growth support for new startups. Put simply, many school leavers lack the economic freedom to launch a business due to lack of income, work commitments and other time constraints. Moreover, the act of launching a business can cause young people to lose access to welfare support and other forms of state income.
Generally speaking, policymakers treat issues relating to money and new startups as a question of access to finance and jump straight to providing grants and loans for young startups ready to grow, however, this is clearly a distinct problem from a young person with a great idea who simply can’t afford to quit his job and develop his concept into a company.
Some policymakers have taken innovative approaches to this issue such as in Portugal where the Entrepreneurship Passport was piloted between 2013 and 2015. This program provided a monthly stipend worth €692.70 for up to 12 months, giving young entrepreneurs the freedom to pursue their concept without their focus being distracted. Other countries such as France have taken steps to ensure entrepreneurs retain access to welfare support. While these policy examples would not normally be associated with entrepreneurship education policy, we view them as a critical bridge between skills development and allowing young people to putting their business ideas to practice in the real world.
It is also important to recognise that young people from groups that are typically marginalized from entrepreneurship, including women, people with disabilities, refugees and migrants, ethnic and religious minority groups and those from rural areas and low-income backgrounds, face an additional layer of barriers and have specific support needs that are often not addressed by entrepreneurship support services. Policymakers and ESOs need to address this both through targeted outreach to underserved communities and by tailoring programs to the unique needs of these communities. Fantastic examples of this can be found in the work of the Sydney School of Entrepreneurship and Orange Corners Côte d’Ivoire.
Evaluating impact
A notable weakness of the entrepreneurship education programs identified through Atlas is the lack of rigorous impact assessment imbedded within them. Only YES for Wales achieves our top rating for program evaluation. Many programs can demonstrate little more than the level of participation that occurred. In particular the long-term economic effects of entrepreneurship education have been difficult to track with advocates arguing that the entrepreneurial skills learned at a young age can take years or even decades to bear fruit. A report by Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) found high levels of concern amongst national experts about the quality of programs and there have been calls from researchers for more rigorous and systematic evaluation of entrepreneurship education programs to improve their quality and effectiveness.
There is also a question of resource allocation and which types of programs deliver gains that wouldn’t have otherwise been realized. Governments routinely spend billions through financing schemes for new startups, many of which have been documented on Atlas, but spend a fraction of this trying to expand the total pool of entrepreneurs through the types of programs covered in this deep dive. Our simple question is this: does $1 million spent offering grants to existing startups achieve more than $1 million spent creating new entrepreneurs through financial support schemes or educational programs? As things stand, this proposition remains untested but finding an answer has the potential to unlock vast amounts of underutilized entrepreneurial talent in ecosystems across the world.