Fostering Entrepreneurship is a key issue for all governments across Europe. Since the so-called “Lisbon Strategy” in 2000, the promotion of startups has been at the top of the on European Commission’s agenda. Changing economic dynamics are the driving force behind this decision. In Europe, large companies dominated the economy until the 1970s. Since then, the trend has reversed. Big companies were affected by restructuring, downsizing and outsourcing - new jobs in Europe are now increasingly created by young and fast growing companies.
In order to create an entrepreneurial culture in European countries, many efforts have been made. A very important piece of this puzzle is fostering entrepreneurship education in schools. Economic education needs to be further implemented into the curriculum.
In Germany, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy has set a remarkable example of promoting entrepreneurship education in the public sector. Pooling many successful efforts into one ministry-lead initiative could further raise public attention and awareness on the topic of entrepreneurship education. The ministry has implemented a top-level working-group, including many key initiatives and business associations. The working group was initiated by Hans-Peter Breuer and Dr. Matthias Wittstock of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. The presidency of the working group is held by the Parliamentary State Secretary, Iris Gleicke.
By exchanging knowledge and experiences the working-group plays an important role in continuously developing the quality of many entrepreneurship education initiatives and projects in Germany. By creating a central website that lists all possible options for entrepreneurship education in Germany teachers can get a good overview at a single glance. They can easily pick and choose the project that fits their class. Thus, more time can be spent on teaching entrepreneurship rather than on hunting for good solutions. Furthermore, the ministry regularly invites teachers for a three day in-depth training on how to teach entrepreneurship. The ministry also offers a series of publications for teachers called “GründerKlasse”. They show how to implement entrepreneurship education into daily lessons as well as voluntary projects that take place outside of regular lessons. Last but not least the ministry offers an online game “BeBoss”. In this game pupils can experience entrepreneurship first hand and develop an economic understanding. The game is also available as an app for tablet-computers.
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Guest post by Dr. Thomas Funke. Dr. Funke heads the Entrepreneurship Department at RKW Kompetenzzentrum, the Global Entrepreneurship Week Germany country host organization. Prior to that position, he was Assistant Professor and Founder of the Entrepreneurship Center Network at Vienna University of Business and Economics. In addition, he was Founder and Head of Operations of the Research Studio eSPARK, a studio that aims to support entrepreneurs in the very early stages. During his academic career, he was based in the US, Hong Kong and Austria. He recently co-authored the book "Beyond Silicon Valley: Examples of successful Entrepreneurship Ecosystems".