Guest editorial

Citation

Yemini, M. (2014), "Guest editorial", Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy, Vol. 3 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEPP-09-2012-0046

Guest editorial

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy, Volume 3, Issue 1

Twenty-first century educational policy: promoting entrepreneurship educationIntroduction

The global twenty-first century environment provides a number of challenges that can only be met through innovative, well-educated and entrepreneurial citizens who possess the courage, spirit and inquisitiveness to think in new ways. Moreover, a dynamic, innovative economy able to create the requisite jobs requires that a large proportion of the population be willing and able to become entrepreneurs (EACEA, 2012). It is nearly axiomatic and frequently demonstrated in the literature that entrepreneurship has become one of the world's growth engines (Spulber, 2011). The global economy is largely based on entrepreneurship, and history has shown that following each economic downturn, it is the entrepreneurial drive and persistence that has placed the economy back on track (Kuratko, 2005). Therefore, entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs are a prime focus of research and public activities in both the developed and the developing world.

Generally an entrepreneur is an energetic, creative, cooperative and innovative person who looks for opportunities and is not afraid of taking risks (Hornaday and Bunker, 1970; Ronstadt, 1990; Shapero, 1975/2008). Frequently, the image of the entrepreneur is linked to economic activities, but awareness of social entrepreneurship has been also increasing. These forms of personal entrepreneurship – both financial and social – have led and will lead to economic and social breakthroughs that enable our world's development in the twenty-first century.

Since education is key to shaping young people's attitudes, skills and culture, it is vital to provide entrepreneurship education from an early age, replete with a strategic vision at national and global levels. Entrepreneurship education is becoming a central policy issue on the institutional, regional, national and international landscapes. This editorial provides a brief overview of some national and international policies regarding entrepreneurship education from K-12 to higher education systems. It also offers some general remarks to give practical assistance to policy makers and academic leaders regarding policies on entrepreneurship education. To conclude, the example of national policies concerning entrepreneurship education in Israel will be discussed.

Entrepreneurship education

Given the widely accepted notion that entrepreneurial ventures are the key to innovation, productivity, and effective competition, national and international interest is increasingly dedicated to entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education. The emergence of academic programs and practical courses on entrepreneurship provides very clear evidence of this interest in the recent decades (Koh, 1996). This growing interest is accompanied by an increase in research on entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education (Holmgren and From, 2005). For example, entrepreneurship research counts at least 44 refereed academic journals and mainstream management journals devoting more issues to the matter (Katz, 2003).

Elsewhere, the European Commission (EC) has long supported the cause of entrepreneurship education. The EC's Education and Training 2020 presents the enhancement of creativity and innovation, including entrepreneurship, at all levels of education and training, as its fourth long-term strategic objective. Countries and institutions worldwide are investing increasing resources in entrepreneurship education, and the debate over the necessary national and regional policies is quite fierce. Hence, entrepreneurship education has grown to become more than a collection of sporadic initiatives, but rather is an organized, strategic issue that demands planning and execution on a national and global level. With governments eager to enhance entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship education policy is becoming an increasingly important topic.

The question of whether entrepreneurship can be taught has become obsolete. It has become axiomatic that entrepreneurship, or certain facets of it, can be taught. Business educators and professionals have evolved beyond the myth that entrepreneurs are born, not made. For example, entrepreneurship education in the USA has exploded into more than 2,200 courses at over 1,600 schools; 277 endowed positions; and over 100 established and funded centers during the last 20 years (Katz, 2003). Peter Drucker, one of the leading thinkers of our time in the field of management, has said, “The entrepreneurial mystique? It's not magic, it's not mysterious, and it has nothing to do with the genes. It's a discipline, and like any discipline, it can be learned” (Drucker, 1985). This view is further supported by a literature review of ten years of enterprise, entrepreneurship and small-business management education that concluded: “most of the empirical studies surveyed indicated that entrepreneurship can be taught, or at least encouraged, by entrepreneurship education” (Gorman et al., 1997).

Individuals may participate in entrepreneurship education and training – which may take different forms – at various points in their lives. For example, all primary school pupils in Scotland receive “enterprise education.” It does not specifically aim to teach Scottish schoolchildren how to start businesses, but rather to instill in them a more general sense of enterprise and entrepreneurialism. Some universities offer students courses about entrepreneurship which, like the Scottish model, do not educate about the practicalities of running businesses, but instead focus on the academic context of venture creation. Hence, university students can engage in courses that educate them regarding the phenomenon of entrepreneurialism more generally, in conjunction with a business management education. Within a different context, an employer or a government agency may offer training in starting a business to employees about to lose their jobs (GEM, 2008).

Entrepreneurship education has become popular for many reasons. First, the study of venture initiation and development of business programs enables students to integrate learning across many disciplines (such as accounting, economics, finance, marketing and other business fields), creating an interactive educational experience. Second, the development of general decision-making process skills that occurs in entrepreneurship classes improves graduates’ success in the labor market. Charney and Libecap (2000) argue that entrepreneurship education produces successful business and industry leaders. Hence, entrepreneurship education contributes to the growth of firms, especially new ones. Companies owned by enterprise education graduates, or those employing such graduates, were found to be more successful and profitable, they argue. Additionally, Charney and Libecap claim that entrepreneurship education graduates tend to be significantly involved in new product development and R&D-related actions. Finally, they note that entrepreneurship education strengthens the connection between the academic community and active businesses, because entrepreneurs often lead the initiatives to fund the academic programs. Many governments and other organizations seek to foster such education on the regional, national and international scale.

Universities in entrepreneurship education and support

Academia encourages entrepreneurship both formally and informally. Many universities offer formal programs to promote and support entrepreneurial initiatives, with a wide range of courses offered in the field within their business school curriculum (Bird and Allen, 1989; Vesper, 1986). Moreover, universities typically can provide a supportive environment for entrepreneurs, especially for technology-based companies. For example, they are equipped with suitable resources, well-equipped laboratories and other facilities such as libraries and computers; have faculties devoted to knowledge advancement in key areas of scientific, engineering, administrative and social issues; and provide cheap labor of talented and motivated students (Bird and Allen, 1989).

Academia and practical fields of entrepreneurship have consistently been at odds throughout the years. In previous decades, universities took a purist approach to researching, supporting research for the sake of knowledge expansion only. However, universities have educated a rich and diverse pool of collaborative educators, consultants and investors of both academic and professional qualifications. Nevertheless, true understanding of the importance of entrepreneurship education is rare: doctoral programs in entrepreneurial studies are lacking, and most academic teaching staff in entrepreneurship originates from other disciplines, without specialized qualification (Kuratko, 2005).

Despite the deficiency in the educational domain, universities have increased on-campus entrepreneurial activities in order to retain the flexibility necessary for business initiatives and maintain productive practical research. These activities include curricula and infrastructure adjustments, and especially the establishment of entrepreneurship and innovation centers (Katz, 2003). Although individual universities invest resources in entrepreneurship education, and some may treat this niche from strategic point of view, the national policies in most countries are more focussed on technology transfer assistance from academic staff, and less on systematic efforts to invest in entrepreneurship education for all students (Yemini and Haddad, 2010).

Entrepreneurship in K-12

The current system of K-12 public schooling was created in a social and economic context that was entirely different from our current one. Compulsory public education arose in the early twentieth century as a way of ensuring education for the massive influx workers in a country's emerging industrial economy. At the time, only a small portion of school-aged children attended school and an even smaller fraction of those completed high school or college (Coulby and Zambeta, 2005). The economy was driven by agriculture and industry, which offered the opportunity for people with a variety of skill levels to earn a living wage, often without any formal education. Today, our schools confront challenges that the education system was not designed for, and may not be equipped to answer. Erected haphazardly over the course of two centuries, the modern schooling system has been configured to process large numbers of students for lives in an industrial economy. Given the demands of globalization and the knowledge economy, arrangements that may have worked passably well 50 years ago are no longer adequate.

Recently, some schools have been actively designing the curriculum and the school's environment to develop twenty-first century skills, including entrepreneurship. Worldwide, some governments are employing strategic approaches to fostering entrepreneurship education, and entrepreneurship programs in K-12 are flourishing globally (GEM, 2008). Leffler (2009) studied entrepreneurship and enterprise in schools by analyzing texts dealing with the subject in various ways, and through a case study of school projects in the province of Västerbotten, Sweden, from 2000 to 2005. Among other results, Leffler demonstrates that conceptual problems exist regarding the actual implications of entrepreneurial training in schools, which in turn entails uncertainty about how entrepreneurship should be incorporated into school systems: should pupils be taught to run businesses, or should their entrepreneurial skills be sharpened?

Most entrepreneurial programs are designed as extra-curricular activities both at the primary and secondary levels of education. However, the various national experts in the European Commission concur that national curricula are not the central element in motivating teachers to carry out entrepreneurial education. Rather, a more important factor is the training and education the teachers themselves receive. One example can be found in Great Britain, where the Scottish government offers primary school teachers in-service training in entrepreneurial education, with a stated aim of training at least two teachers from each school in this field. Yet such examples are not all that common; some countries invest some resources into some of the aspects of entrepreneurship education, but most countries lack a systematic, long-term agenda for entrepreneurship education in K-12.

Entrepreneurship education policy

The Organization for Economic and Cultural Development and the World Bank have stressed the significance of education and training as keys to participation in the new global knowledge economy; for the development of “human resources;” for up-skilling and increasing the competencies of workers; and for the production of research and scientific knowledge. When designing and examining policy on entrepreneurship education, it is critical to note the influence of international organizations on the policy making in the field of entrepreneurship education, the differences in such policies in developing and developed countries, and to the role of technology in such processes.

Worldwide, the contemporary education system is being influenced by global economic, cultural, and educational forces, and education institutions themselves (as well as units and constituencies within them) are increasingly global actors, extending their influence internationally – especially in the higher education system. Moreover, the political, economic and educational contours of countries, regions and continents are being reshaped by regional trading blocs that are leading education to become more similar across national boundaries and more active in regional markets. In conjunction to these global forces affecting education, the legitimacy of nation states and of national education systems that express national cultures is being challenged by movements to preserve and promote local and regional cultural identity and independence (Marginson and Rhoades, 2002).

In large-scale international comparative studies, neo-institutionalists have demonstrated that schools’ curricula, policy and organization converge in different nations due to top-down processes that developed in a network of international organizations within global society. Individual nation states later adapt these isomorphic conversions, promoting and transmitting them through various powerful mechanisms such as international standards, conferences and agreements (Meyer, 2007; Frank et al., 2000). Thus, the dialogue between nation-building, socialization, ideology and nationalism, together with neo-institutional homogenizing influences creates complex multidimensional pressures on education systems that schools express in various ways.

The OECD (1992) first published a set of international education indicators in Education at a Glance. The purpose of the publication, according to the OECD, was to provide member countries with comparative information on the organization and operation of their education systems. Currently, 20 years after the first publication, this ranking significantly affects national decision making in almost all OECD countries. Many aspects of the indicators generate debate and dialogue. For example, Finland's apparently successful educational system has attracted a steady stream of delegates seeking to learn how to replicate Finland's success. Comparative studies from the OECD, such as Schools under Scrutiny, can also provide helpful insights into challenging issues.

The problems arise, however, when politicians seek simplistic solutions to the educational challenges that their own countries face and seek off-the-shelf solutions that are highly context specific. In fact, differences exist in the nature of entrepreneurship training in different countries and the respective interactions with international agencies to address education policy in that subject. Such differences can specifically be identified between developed and developing counties.

Developing vs developed countries

In the 2008 GEM Executive Report, GEM countries were classified into three different phases of economic development, following the framework employed by the Global Competitiveness Report (Porter and Schwab, 2008): factor-driven countries that tend to have economies that are primarily extractive in nature, whose governments should focus on basic requirements such as primary education and basic governance; efficiency-driven countries are either devoting more attention to driving down labor costs as basic requirements are met, or else they should be; and innovation-driven countries are wealthier economies that are becoming less price-competitive and need to focus on providing the conditions that allow opportunity-based entrepreneurship and innovation to flourish.

According to GEM, as economies develop, they tend to shift from factor-driven, to efficiency-driven, to innovation-driven economies. Porter and Schwab argue that governments of factor-driven countries with mainly extractive type economic activity should focus on enhancing the basic requirements of economic development, such as stable government, basic infrastructure and primary health care and education. With the exception of well-managed countries that are especially well endowed with natural resources, such as Saudi Arabia, most entrepreneurial activity in factor-driven countries is likely to be necessity driven, and government attention is best focussed on providing a basic foundation for enabling this activity, rather than (for example) providing sophisticated training in opportunity-driven entrepreneurship. As an economy develops, and as the employment of relatively cheap labor decreases in viability, necessity-driven entrepreneurship declines and governments may start to pay more attention to entrepreneurship. The most developed nations, no longer able to depend on low-labor costs, must instead compete in ways that are more creative. For the governments of such countries, the quality and quantity of entrepreneurship and innovation becomes a source of national competitive advantage.

GEM recognizes the nature and level of entrepreneurship education and training as one of the primary condition of a nation's entrepreneurial framework. According to the GEM model, the relative importance of entrepreneurship education and training increases as economies develop. Thus, entrepreneurship education should address different issues across countries in different states of economic development, and should be able to change across time as transformation occurs within a country's condition.

Entrepreneurship education policy in Israel

Israel's government and its universities have focussed much effort on identifying and nurturing high-growth entrepreneurial firms. Many start-ups have failed, but a number have succeeded and grown quickly. The result: Israeli high-growth start-ups have created jobs, generated sustainable wealth for the country, and given innovations to the world: the USB memory stick, new generation cardiac stents, and camera pills that transmit pictures from inside the human body, among them. Israel is often referred to as the “startup nation” and a high-tech superpower (Yemini and Haddad, 2010). Indeed, it has always been considered a vibrant, entrepreneurial state, famous for its cutting-edge industry and exportation of high-tech knowledge. Its compulsory military service for most citizens is regarded as a socially leveling force that continuously contributes to the development, enhancement, and originality of its economic and industrial sectors (Singer and Senor, 2011). The Israeli public sector largely influenced the development of Israel's entrepreneurial policy. By establishing the Office of the Chief Scientist in the mid-1980s, with the infusion of massive public venture funding in the 1990s, and the establishment of incubator environments at roughly the same time, the state gave a high priority to promoting new high-tech enterprises, and to facilitating the creation and diffusion of knowledge (Singer and Senor, 2011).

Israeli schools do not have national curriculum on entrepreneurship, but several non-governmental organizations addressing entrepreneurialism are active in schools. The most prominent of these are the global Junior Achievement Organization's Young Entrepreneurs Program, and “Taasiyeda,” a program affiliated with the non-profit organization, Association for Industry. Taasiyeda provides various activities integrated into junior-high school programs, reaching 30,000 students annually. Young entrepreneurs (Yazamim Tzeirim in Hebrew) is organizing entrepreneurship education projects for teenagers between the ages of 13 and 16. Participants are divided into groups and start small companies, developing new and unique products. This program reaches over 250 schools per year.

Israeli higher education system also provides active support to entrepreneurship education although some of the subfields are remain uncovered. On the one hand, entrepreneurship is systematically taught in the fields of public policy, economics, business administration and social work; on the other hand, neither theoretical nor applied entrepreneurship education is included in physics, chemistry, pharmacology, engineering or any other technical disciplines. This lacuna may be partially explained by the fact that entrepreneurship training is considered extraneous and dispensable in the sciences and engineering.

Summary

Worldwide, entrepreneurship is at the top of the social, political and economic agenda. Fueled in part by the abundance of internet start-ups in the late 1990s and the associated increase in venture capital investment and stock market values, the process whereby individuals create and build new firms has captured the public imagination. Given the strong association between entrepreneurship and economic growth, policy makers internationally have grown increasingly attentive to developing and implementing strategies that nurture and sustain entrepreneurial activity. As discussed earlier, policy makers, educators and practitioners take particular interest in the impact of entrepreneurship education and training on individual attitudes, actions and ambitions. It is generally believed that individuals who possess confidence in their skills and ability to start a business are more likely to do so.

A 2009 report by the Global Education Initiative of the World Economic Forum stressed the importance of entrepreneurship education and training:

[…] while education is one of the most important foundations for economic development, entrepreneurship is a major driver of innovation and economic growth. Entrepreneurship education plays an essential role in shaping attitudes, skills and culture – from the primary level up. […] We believe entrepreneurial skills, attitudes and behaviors can be learned, and that exposure to entrepreneurship education throughout an individual's lifelong learning path, starting from youth and continuing through adulthood into higher education – as well as reaching out to those economically or socially excluded – is imperative (pp. 7-8).

That, entrepreneurship education will probably positioned very high in so called “21st century capabilities and skills” list. The efforts on individual, organizational, national and global level to esquire and to possess those skills will continue to be targeted by diverse interest groups. Entrepreneurship education is on its way to become an integral part of the education system in places that wish to prepare graduates for the global and dynamic current and future world.

Miri Yemini

Department of Educational Policy and Administration, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

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