Disclosure: EIPTE is an European Union-wide project, with its project coordinator residing in Antwerpen, Belgium.
History of the initiative
Entrepreneurship in Initial Primary Teacher Education (EIPTE), is a strategic partnership between eight European institutions: six higher education institutions, one science centre and a
foundation. The project is funded as part of the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union and carried out in co-operation with the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). The overall objective of EIPTE is to encourage higher education institutions to implement entrepreneurship education and/or enhance the quality of entrepreneurship education in their initial primary teacher education.
EIPTE is based on the following definition of entrepreneurship education: “Entrepreneurship is when you act upon opportunities and ideas and transform them into value for others. The value that is created can be financial, cultural, or social”. Therefore, the main outcome of the project is a toolbox for initial primary teacher education within higher education institutions. The
toolbox has been translated into a number of languages and consists of both national and European learning resources. The toolbox is complemented by the new materials developed during the project lifetime. Further intellectual outputs, consisting of nine additional 14 resources, aim to improve or implement entrepreneurship education in initial primary teacher education at
various levels.
Activities and learning outcomes
Numerous outputs were produced and made freely available on the EIPTE website. These outputs included the Toolbox for Entrepreneurship in Initial Primary Teacher Education, consisting of
earning activities that can be applied and adapted for different institutional requirements. The toolbox addresses background analysis, programme development and evaluation, followed by entrepreneurship education management and learning activities. Tools are categorised as methodology, educators’ book, workbook, resources platform, sets of activities, training courses and research papers. Furthermore, within the toolbox there are: a self-evaluation tool which allows in-service primary school teachers to evaluate their entrepreneurship competences, profiles of universities which are experienced in entrepreneurship education in ITE and useful multimedia materials. Guidelines for the use of the toolbox are provided to aid in the adaptation of tools to
the individual context.
Taking a practical approach, each partner country arranged one Intensive Programme week for ITE students. Each partner’s event had a different theme. An example of such a theme, the learning outcomes of the event in Roskilde, Denmark were as follows:
• Having theoretical knowledge on entrepreneurship in a pedagogical context.
• Be able to develop, design, practise and evaluate cycles of lessons that involve entrepreneurship.
• Be able to support and integrate entrepreneurial competences in their daily teaching practise enabling a dual focus (curriculum and entrepreneurship education) through didactical thinking and reflected methodology.
• Will be able to think critically and reflect on teaching practise in regard to entrepreneurship.
While at the event in Vilnius, Lithuania students learned about creativity, innovation, financial literacy, sustainable development and social responsibility, communication. Another output of EIPTE is an entrepreneurship education framework for higher education institutions with initial primary teacher education. The framework looks into existing entrepreneurship education practices and what is required for their implementation in primary school ITE. The framework further defines what entrepreneurship education knowledge and skills are required for education students.
In closing, the EIPTE project has produced a number of useful resources for both teacher trainers and preservice teachers at higher education institutions.