Entrepreneurship Education, A step to Education 2030
Globalization and the fast dynamic world are a challenge that must be overcome, by adaptation, both at national and individual levels. Bringing entrepreneurship knowledge, skills, and attitudes into focus and integrating this field into education appear to be promising, since the potential lies in education 2030, education for sustainable development. Education 2030, adopted recently by the Lebanese Center for Education and Research, promotes 1) Economic growth, 2) Fair distribution of resources, 3) Full employment, 4) Favorable Balance of payment, and 5) Price stability which are the main objectives of entrepreneurship education.
Entrepreneurship education can be defined as the purposeful intervention by an educator in the life of the learner to impact entrepreneurial qualities and skills to enable the learner to survive in the world of business (Erasmus, Loedoff, Mda and Nel, 2006).
In most definitions of entrepreneurship, there is an agreement that the entrepreneur: 1) is innovative, 2) organizes or reorganizes economic-social mechanisms in order to convert the situations and resources into practical cases, and 3) undertakes risk or failure (Sharper, 1998). Entrepreneurship is the ability to create knowledge out of nothing, the capacity to understand how to find, organize, and control the resources which are mostly in hands of others (Timmons, 1999).
Entrepreneurship education puts emphasis on imagination, creativity, and risk acceptance in business, on the contrary, traditional views put more emphasis on quantitative techniques than development of creative skills (Porter, 1994). Other aspects that can be promoted through entrepreneurship education include: communication, problem-solving skill, team work, self-management, and planning. (Fones, 2004)
Research showed that implementing entrepreneurship education involves: 1) helping the learners to learn how to learn, 2) important knowledge consists of both knowledge transfer and knowledge reconstruction, 3) providing conditions under which the learners can practically work on issues, 4) helping the learners to develop the frameworks and models of their decisions, 5) persuasion of cooperative learning, 6) persuasion of system thinking to understand and promote business measures (Vakili, Tahmasebi, Tahmasebi, & Tahmasebi, 2017).
I think it is a must to start preparing our students to adapt living in this dynamic world through providing them with the necessary values, knowledge and skills.
References
Erasmus, B.J., Loedoiff, P.V.Z., Mda, T. & Nel, P.S. (2006). Management training and development. Cape Town: Oxford University Press.
Fones, C and English, f (2004). A contemporary approach to entrepreneurship education, Emerald Group Publishing, 46, 416–423
Porter, L(1994). The relation of entrepreneurship education to business education, simulation and Gaming, 25, 416–9. Rajabbeigi, M. et al. Tadbri, 151. (In Persian).
Sharper, A (1998). Entrepreneurship and Educatio Development project ISEED, center for venture management Milwaukee, WI. Timmons S, J.A (1999). New Venture creation, IRWIN, Homewood, IL.
Vakili F, Tahmasebi N, Tahmasebi S, & Tahmasebi D, (2016) .J. Ecophysiol. Occup. Hlth. 16(3&4), 78–87.
