Blog Timeline Left Bar

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 resources, aim to improve or implement entrepreneurship education in initial primary teacher education at various levels.

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 learning 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.

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 pre-service teachers at higher education institutions.

EIPTE website can be accessed here: https://eipte.eu/
Photo: EIPTE logo

History of the initiative
Founded in 2013, YELL is a charitable organisation which equips young people with the knowledge, skills and networks that are needed for after-school success. YELL operates within the public school system in Canada and thus aids in building capacity within these schools. YELL works with teachers and these teachers help strengthen and update the curriculum, along with universities. YELL’s programmes look to foster participants’ entrepreneurial mindsets and expose them to a community of entrepreneurial thinkers.
The design of the YELL programmes was sparked after a survey in the province of British Columbia (Canada) found that a very low percentage of high school leavers felt prepared for their next step after graduation. The programmes were developed to prepare students in a way that their traditional schools were not able to.
The YELL Entrepreneurship 12 course in particular, was given a valuable opportunity after a unique partnership between YELL and Simon Fraser University (SFU) was built. This partnership was specifically facilitated through Amit Sandu, Managing Director of YELL and an SFU alumnus, and Dr Sarah Lubik from SFU’s Chang Institute. Sarah had seen that there was a lack of consistency across the entrepreneurship classes being taught in high schools and a lack of understanding of what entrepreneurship education was about. Sarah felt there was a need for a platform where students could express and apply their individual entrepreneurial mindsets and also receive external benefits for this. The desire for consistency across programmes in schools and building that capacity to deliver these programmes brought YELL and SFU together.
Sarah joined YELL’s Board of Directors in 2017. In collaboration with SFU, YELL is now able to provide university credit for its Entrepreneurship 12 course, and participants are automatically included in the Chang Certificate in Innovation and Entrepreneurship. This makes it Canada’s first high school entrepreneurship course to be eligible for university credit.

Aims and objectives
The YELL Entrepreneurship 12 course is a year-long programme that aims to remove barriers to involvement in entrepreneurship for participants. This elective high school course provides consistency across entrepreneurial courses in schools so that they can be recognised as being valuable, and eventually be accredited.

Activities and learning outcomes
The YELL Entrepreneurship 12 course develops participants’ understanding in the following:
• core concepts of lean entrepreneurship
• design thinking
• financial projections
• Business Model Canvas
• self-efficacy
• resiliency
• marketing
• problem solving
• effective communication.

The YELL Entrepreneurship 12 course is taught using a number of innovative teaching methods including differentiated learning (videos, booklets, reading materials), inquiry-based learning, experiential-based learning and problem-based learning. Suggestions for assessment include various formative and summative tasks such as tests, reflections, feedback on speakers, surveys, think-pair-share, and other curriculum markers to identify the ability towards the competences. Clearly, there is substantial room for flexibility.
The course focusses on numerous facets of entrepreneurship education and includes guest speakers, mentors and community participation. The different facets of the course include:

Accelerated Learning
The course starts with students learning about lean entrepreneurship, covering topics such as design thinking, resilience, marketing, financial projections, and Business Model Canvas. Entrepreneurs and business leaders also share their stories and advice with students.

Industry Exploration
In this part of the course, local companies and labs interact with students, allowing the students to explore different career options. Here they learn about new technologies, tour office spaces and hear from industry professionals.
Business Incubator
In the Business Incubator phase of the project, students form groups where they create a business venture together and ultimately validate their concepts. Students must problem-solve and communicate effectively. Mentors act as a liaison between teams and the broader entrepreneurship community.
Venture Challenge
Finally, participating teams compete in the Venture Challenge series hosted at SFU. Student teams present their business ventures to a panel of community members, entrepreneurs and investors.

Breaking barriers for impact
Common barriers for such projects are usually related to schools not having sufficient funding and teachers not having the capacity to implement the curriculum. Lack of support for teachers from their districts makes it more difficult for them to implement the curriculum. Parents also have a negative view of what entrepreneurship means and this can often be a barrier for students that want to take the elective. The students themselves are also looking for electives that meet university requirements and if the course does not count for university admission, then they are less likely to take part.
To overcome such barriers, YELL builds capacity within schools and collaborates with teachers and helps them adopt the curriculum. Teachers receive administrative support from schools to implement the YELL Entrepreneurship 12 course in their classrooms and the partnership between SFU and YELL can provide teachers with peer-support, course curricula, lesson plans, slide decks and workbooks. The course also has no cost for schools nor students. Institutional support is provided to YELL by SFU.
In terms of impact on educators, teachers have been seen to pick up the tools to develop their own entrepreneurial mindsets through teaching the curriculum to their students. Those that teach YELL courses also pass their skills and knowledge onto other teachers when attending professional development conferences. On the other hand, on completion of the course, participants have developed 21st century life skills and a broader understanding of what entrepreneurial thinking requires. Participants are more resilient, self-reliant, are able to spot opportunities, and build a strong network. After completing the course, 85% of students reported feeling prepared for the next step in their education or career and many alumni of the course begin their university education at SFU. Receiving recognition in the form of university credit is a motivator for students to take the course and around 330 participants are predicted to take part this year in British Columbia.
Going forward, in order to further develop the field of entrepreneurship education in general, young people should be given the tools to develop entrepreneurial skills from an early age. Entrepreneurship needs to break out from its traditional perception as being something very specific to business and economics. It needs to be understood by everyone as a mindset, a set of interdisciplinary skills that can be used to create social change. Entrepreneurship should be seen as an avenue to a more self-customised education.

History of the initiative
JUGEND GRÜNDET is organised by the Steinbeis Innovation Centre for Corporate Development at Pforzheim University (SIZ). The SIZ is a non-profit organisation with many years of wide-ranging experience in publicly funded business and vocational training educational projects. The centre sees itself as a partner of schools with the intention of anchoring the subjects of entrepreneurship education and economics in the classroom.
The idea of JUGEND GRÜNDET was based on the experiences with Jugend forscht, a well-known competition for students and young adults, where participants research and develop new inventions. It was found that there is a need to sensitise participants to the necessity to not only develop inventions but to also market them. Thus, the idea for JUGEND GRÜNDET was born. In 2003 this competition was set up nationwide by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research in co-operation with the SIZ, as an online offer to build knowledge around how to start a company and how to lead it to success.
The goal of the initiative is to promote entrepreneurial thinking, as defined by the European Union: “an individual’s ability to turn ideas into action”. As well, to bring up the topic of founding a company (often for the first time), and to sensitise teenagers and young adults to the opportunities that starting a company has to offer them.
Numerous stakeholders are involved in JUGEND GRÜNDET, including: The Federal Ministry for Education and Research, which provides funding and content-wise advancement in consultation with the SIZ; the ministries of the federal states who raise awareness amongst teachers and facilitate the reduction of work hours for a teacher to adopt the role of a programme state representative; teachers that use the programme in class, refer interested students to the programme and give input for programme content; and alumni who can get support from the programme to stay connected to the topic of entrepreneurship. Alumni also function as role models and mentors for the participants. They may also be (potential) sponsors and supporters in the long run. There are also programme sponsors who support in the form of hosting events, price sponsoring, additional funding, and public relations work.
The main target group of the JUGEND GRÜNDET are students and trainees, aged between 15 and 21-years-old. The programme tries to motivate students by building an interesting and appealing e-learning platform which focusses on questions around the topic at hand. Participants are recruited directly through social media, online advertisement, and search engine optimisation, as well as indirectly through their teachers. Information concerning the programme is in part sent directly to schools nationwide (mail and e-mail) and, more promisingly, indirectly via the state ministries of education, school boards and regional chambers of industry and commerce or business developers.

Aims and objectives
The main goal of JUGEND GRÜNDET is to show the participants that there are opportunities to shape the future and that their ideas are in demand. During the project, participants are provided with tools and structures so that ideas could be turned into reality. Ideally participants get a better sense of the mission and responsibility of a company. In addition, the project hopes to impart knowledge on how to start a company and what must be considered, as well as an understanding of the complex dependencies of the various stakeholders. Participants are hopefully inspired and equipped to take matters into their own hands and to create change, instead of waiting for someone else to fix it. The goal is that this filters through into their everyday lives.

Activities and learning outcomes
The initiative is offered online with a vast number of materials in different forms to support the teacher on the one hand, but on the other hand to support the participant taking part completely unsupported by a school or other educational institution. It is possible to take part as a team of up to five persons or as a single person.
The programme offers a free and extensive e-learning-platform, specifically designed to support the participants and the text and videos. Support is also available digitally by phone and e-mail year-round. Additionally, the programme offers web-seminars, tutorials, and video consulting hours, as well as connecting the participants with mentors (alumni).
The learning outcomes that are pursued with this initiative are the understanding of the complexities, dependencies and necessities when starting and leading a company. The main activities are idea development, business planning and playing the business simulation game.
The programme mirrors a typical start-up process: having an idea, planning its realisation, and then finally doing it. At the centre stands the conviction that every economic offer that shows long term success is adding value in some form or another. The programme tries to inspire the students to think about what could be better in their personal lives or globally, and plays to the will to improve the world, which is innate in most young people. The programme guides them every step of the way, using interesting examples and role models which talk about their own experiences and advise based on that.
The project starts every year on the first of September with the business plan phase. The participants then submit their business plans shortly after the Christmas holidays. All submitted ideas are evaluated by a jury and the best teams are selected, which then take part in national pitch events and receive the first awards. At the federal finale, the competition entry is a mix between a short pitch, a live and in-person jury talk and the equipping of an exhibition booth.
The second phase of the competition is activated with the simulation game. Here, the virtual companies of the teams are guided through the ups and downs of the simulated economy to economic success over eight periods and can thus collect points. Each team has five attempts, but only the last attempt counts. Help is provided, among other things, by a digital manual that answers all the students’ questions, as well as video tutorials and the Business Academy.
Following the simulation game, the best ten teams of the competition are invited to the national finals at the end of June and fight for the first places. The winning team, along with the supervising teacher, will set off on a guided trip through the start-up mecca of Silicon Valley, USA for personal exchange to connect with start-ups and founders. There are also other attractive prizes.

Breaking barriers for impact
A big challenge is that the topic of entrepreneurship education does not make up a big enough part of the school curriculum for the teachers to justify spending that much time on the programme. This challenge is being faced through keeping the initial entrance barrier as low as possible. The participants definitely have to spend quite some time on working on their ideas, the business plan and the simulation to win. But as a student you can equally learn by only doing a little. So, there is an attempt to motivate teachers and students alike, so they simply give the competition a try.
Furthermore, the programme is very adaptable to the different teachers and schools as well as curricula, especially timewise. By only setting a deadline for the final exercises the participants are free to choose when to work on their business plans. Also, through imparting that entrepreneurial education should not be confined to economics but is a valuable part of every component of education, interest in entrepreneurship education is sparked.
Support for JUGEND GRÜNDET, on a policy level, is provided through financial support from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research; co-operation with the Ministries for Education; exchange with other national competitions for young students. Furthermore, the individual commitment of teachers acting as motivators and coaches, as well as their willingness to enter into exchange and learn from other teachers and collaborate with experts support the programme.

Through this initiative young people can acquire knowledge on entrepreneurship and how to start a business, but also skills in areas such as self-management, time management, teamwork and creativity. The project inspires its participants and displays how they could shape their own future. Thus, after the participation in the initiative, young people can apply their gained knowledge in different circumstances and adapt their competences.
Alumni often report that participating in JUGEND GRÜNDET changed their view on the world in so far as they actively try to change what bothers them, instead of looking for others to improve the situation. Teachers report that many students show great growth over the course of the competition, developing greater independence in thinking and judgement and willingness to learn far beyond the initial goal of their project. Interesting student ideas so far have included:
1. A more sustainable way to feed fish in aquaculture by using lupins instead of other fish.
2. A robot that could substitute a seeing-eye-dog, which would lead to enormous cost reduction for health insurance companies and could be widely accessible.
3. A plug-in that allows for the visually impaired to play Mario-Kart without restrictions.
4. A charging system for e-mobility using streetlamps complete with a concept for billing and accounting.
A testament to the fact that the project always achieves its goal can be seen in the teams that continue to work on their ideas after participating or have even already founded them. The programme has also won numerous awards and has been recognised and recommended by the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in the Federal Republic of Germany.
In terms of future developments, young people can be inspired by their involvement in JUGEND GRÜNDET and shown that there are opportunities to help shape their development; and that one does not have to wait and see what happens.

Image credits: Jugend Grúndet

History of the initiative
Fawaka Entrepreneurship School is a social enterprise offering entrepreneurship education programmes for school children. Fawaka focuses particularly on involving vulnerable children and children who have difficulty accessing innovative educational programmes. The initiative encourages the participation of all children, regardless of socio-economic status, background, or learning abilities. The programmes developed by Fawaka vary in how they are presented and can be offered as an after-school or in-school activity, or as a summer school. Children learn entrepreneurial skills in a playful and positive way, with an emphasis on sustainability. The educational programmes are themed, and previous offerings have included: chocolate, fashion, robotics, health and nutrition, and upcycling.
Fawaka aims to introduce all children in the Netherlands to the concept and learnings of sustainable entrepreneurship. The core values of Fawaka are reflected in all its programmes which have an entrepreneurship education as a basis. These core values are as follows:
• Diversity and inclusion
• Durability
• Talent development
• Actions speaking louder than words.
With the core value of “diversity and inclusion”, for example, Fawaka considers how children can positively identify with its teaching materials. Additionally, Fawaka also aims to have all contributors to the programmes represent the full diversity that the Netherlands has to offer, so that children can encounter a recognisable and relatable role model for themselves. These contributors include teachers, creators, bankers and entrepreneurs that participate in the creation and presentation of Fawaka’s activities.

Activities and learning outcomes
Through Fawaka’s current programme offerings children receive classes on marketing, pitching and budgeting and design. In most programmes, children will develop their own products such as clothing, in the “Fashion Entrepreneurs” programme, or a song, in “Beat Entrepreneurs”. In each of the programmes, entrepreneurship is integrated through the different themes, whether it be learning about programming, the chocolate production process, or recycling. Through the programmes, children also learn 21st century skills such as perseverance, decision-making skills and flexibility, as well as how to contribute to a sustainable society through taking action. Other competences that are highlighted in the programmes are collaboration and solution-oriented thinking.
A specific example of one of Fawaka’s programme offerings is the BuurtBizKids programme, which is focussed on social entrepreneurship in different neighbourhoods. The BuurtBizKids programme consists of a modular series of ten lessons where children explore their own neighbourhoods and find potential for improvement. Children interact with each other and converse with local residents about the challenges in their neighbourhood, under the guidance of citizenship professionals. Thereafter the children seek solutions to these challenges with the help of industry professionals. Ultimately, the children present their improvement plans to the municipality and the neighbourhood itself. Through the programme children learn about, and contribute to achieving, the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 10 and SDG 11, which are about combating inequality and creating sustainable cities.
Fawaka Entrepreneurship School aims to reach children with diverse backgrounds and leaning abilities to make entrepreneurial skills accessible to all. This, while maintaining a focus on social and sustainable practices that have benefits beyond the individual.

Image credits: Fawaka Entrepreneurship School

History of the initiative
Katja Visser’s travels led her to be exposed to different educational settings around the world. However, one particular experience convinced Katja that something needed to change in terms of what children learn at school. While volunteering in Peru, Katja saw the state of the education that many young, less privileged children were receiving. Katja felt that the children were missing out on important topics in their education that would help them develop the life skills they would need for the 21st century.
Thus, the StartUp4Kids Foundation was founded, with the Klas4Klas curriculum being one of the initiatives based in the Netherlands. StartUp4Kids is supported by volunteers that make up the team members as well as members of the board. StartUp4Kids looks to facilitate children’s journeys to discovering their own talents and skills to shape their own futures. In co-operating with partners and schools in disadvantaged areas, StartUp4Kids aims to deliver social and financial education programmes based on methods developed by Aflatoun, a Dutch NGO which offers social and financial education to children and young people worldwide. With this, StartUp4Kids strives to improve the quality of education in general and bring entrepreneurial skills into the classroom, using its specific curricula. Specifically, the Klas4klas curriculum was created to help children increase their self-confidence, discover their talents, see problems as opportunities and manage their own resources responsibly. Through taking a broad view of entrepreneurship, Klas4Klas was developed to create self-sufficient individuals.

Aims and objectives
The aim of Klas4Klas is to turn students into citizens of the world, and the interactive teaching methods within the Klas4klas curriculum help children learn skills such as self-reliance, critical and creative thinking, communication, collaboration and social and cultural skills. Within the rapidly changing world of today, Klas4Klas looks to give participants confidence to make their own choices and take all opportunities available, as well as prepare them for the careers of the future. Klas4Klas is aimed, in particular, at teaching children how to deal with finances and develop socially responsible entrepreneurship. Young people are very open-minded and creative, especially in primary school, and Klas4Klas encourages children to develop interesting ideas for their projects. Children also learn about the two different partner countries, the Netherlands and Ethiopia, and gain a global perspective.
Activities and learning outcomes
Klas4Klas provides a curriculum that teachers can follow and implement in their classrooms. The curriculum was developed for students in the Netherlands and Ethiopia and the belief that children should learn from one another, through sharing experiences and knowledge, resulted in Klas4Klas creating partners, where one class in the Netherlands partners and interacts with another class in Ethiopia. StartUp4Kids hires and educates professional facilitators to carry out the Klas4klas programme. The foundation also trains other teachers that will implement the Klas4Klas curriculum, so that the reach of the methodology can be spread.
The curriculum is based on the Aflatoun programme which incorporates group work and activity-based learning approaches such as project-based learning, and also learning through songs, worksheets, games and activities. Using the content and framework of Aflatoun, the Klas4Klas curriculum gets children to work in teams to set up business clubs and learn to save, manage their money, plan and budget. The activities to be undertaken by each business club is ideated by the teams themselves and proceeds from the business activities go to their Ethiopian partners. This brings the children into direct contact with the running and starting of a social entrepreneurship.
The partner schools in the Netherlands and Ethiopia may meet each other online, and in the case of students in secondary school, students from each country may meet in person when Dutch students travel to Ethiopia as part of the curriculum. These trips are completely financed by their own entrepreneurial activities, such as organising fundraising events, crowdfunding and saving.

Breaking barriers for impact
The years 2020/21 have brought the challenge of COVID-19, thus few children have been able to attend school where the Klas4Klas curriculum would be applied. Furthermore, being an organisation that relies on volunteers and donations means that procuring funding can be a challenge. The competences of current teachers is a further challenge, as they themselves often lack the skills that they need to teach students entrepreneurship. Practicing teachers often do not have time to be able to learn these skills and implement extra activities during class times. StartUp4Kids sees a real need for teachers to be trained in entrepreneurship education and how to teach children through experiential and active learning. Teachers having the ability to use flexible teaching methods so that all students can learn effectively, regardless of ability, is also emphasised.
Regardless of the challenges, schools are very willing to work with the Klas4Klas curriculum and educators are aware of the need for entrepreneurship education in schools. StartUp4Kids also approaches its “warm” leads at schools and schools that have previously implemented the programme and are very likely to start again with a new group of students in the new school year. Thus, ensuring that the Klas4Klas curriculum continues to be taught. StartUp4Kids is also in contact with a specialist in funding for schools to find schools where the programme can be implemented. In the meantime, StartUp4Kids has funding to bring the Klas4Klas programme to vulnerable children and teenagers, in particular refugees, in Vlaardingen and Schiedam in the Netherlands.
The long-term impact of the project, in terms of the small businesses that participants create, cannot be measured yet. However, certain outcomes are clear: after the completion of the course participants find the confidence to speak out, give their opinions, talk to an audience, and have pride in the work that they have done throughout the programme. Increased self-esteem is evident especially in those participants that face challenges – be that physical or otherwise. It can also be seen that following the Klas4Klas curriculum improves the children’s results in class.
One of the most important outcomes to be seen are a snowball effect where participants influence their teachers and parents. Through the completion of the curriculum, it has been seen that teachers have increased their entrepreneurial competences and oftentimes parents are more aware of saving money. In the Ethiopian classrooms, participants have even been inspired by Klas4Klas to open their own bank accounts, which would otherwise not have happened. Klas4Klas has a large and lifelong social impact that affects all stakeholders.
It is clear to others that the motivation of those working with Klas4Klas is driven by the social impact that they create, thus there has been much support for the programme from individuals and organisations that see the value in what Klas4Klas is trying to achieve. Support for the programme grows when people see the effect that the programme has on the students and the dedication of the Klas4Klas facilitators to their work.
Looking to the future, StartUp4Kids is working to find funding for schools in the Netherlands to implement the Klas4Klas curriculum, as well as looking to created tailored curricula for schools. StartUp4Kids aims to continue improving education systems in schools and bring the competences of entrepreneurship and other 21st century skills to its participants. Moreover, StartUp4Kids hopes to further involve parents and teachers in this goal.

Co-ordinator of project/initiative:
Katja Visser
Website:

Homepage

Homepage

Social media / relevant online channels:
https://www.facebook.com/StartUp4kids

Image credits: Klas4Klas

History of the initiative
The Initiative for Teaching Entrepreneurship (IFTE) is a network, which is mainly active in the sector of initial teacher education. It supports entrepreneurship education on the level of teacher training by organising events, workshops, seminars and summer schools. The programme and the people of IFTE are closely connected to e.e.si., which is the leading network for entrepreneurship education in Austria.
The idea for the Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year award was born out of the “Next Generation Competition”, a yearly competition for business ideas among pupils between 15 to 19 years. It was the idea to promote not only pupils, but also the teachers in the background. The initial idea came from Johannes Lindner and was then realised in co-ordination with the e.e.si. network and the Ministry of Education. In the meantime, further stakeholders could have been gained to serve as sponsors. Nominations for the award are given by e.e.si. co-ordinators, who are representing their federal states. The idea is that people from all nine federal states should have the potential of being nominated. The regional e.e.si. co-ordinators, who have been installed by the Ministry of Education, are responsible for co-ordinating the entrepreneurship education activities in their federal state (mainly at the secondary level in vocational education) and thus have a very good overview of what happens in their region.
The award is presented at two occasions, depending on availability of the winners, that is at the Festival of Ideas or at the Entrepreneurship Summit. Usually, the Minister of Education presents the award. The presentation by the Minister of Education emphasises its significance. The awards should raise awareness on the school level and beyond. Thus, regional and national media coverage is critical.
Main target groups for nominations are teachers at the primary and secondary level. Another group of stakeholders in the Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year award are those who are engaged in entrepreneurship education, such as business coaches.

Activities
Teachers are key multipliers, if it is to strengthen the initiative and entrepreneurial spirit of children and young people in the school environment. Since there are already a number of initiatives, competitions and awards for pupils, teachers should be appreciated as well. Thus, the award honours their commitment and at the same time presents their ideas and projects to the public. The areas in which the awarded persons are active are as follows:
• Learning occasions: The first areas are learning activities and learning processes with children and young people. Here there might be “fix-starters”; teachers whose classes and pupils achieve a gold medal at the Next Generation Competition or at Euro-Skills, a competition in vocational education involving an entrepreneurship-category, and automatically receive the award in recognition of their mentoring.
• Organisational work: Doing organisational work at the school level and developing a school concept in the area of entrepreneurship. Here it is not enough that one promotes the already existing e.e.si. school concept, but that one creates innovative priorities. For example, one school received an award for organising a one-day-per-week free time, in which pupils can choose specific areas of learning in order to further develop certain strengths and potentials. For this purpose, the normal regular lessons were shortened by 5 minutes, which created an additional day per week. Besides, stakeholders could also become recognised in this area, if they develop innovative offerings which have been integrated into the school system or organise festivals.
• Teachers as multipliers: The third area is teacher training and continuing development, in which teachers are inspired and innovative offerings are set. Also included here are the committed and engaged activities of stakeholders.
Most of the awarded activities are in secondary education because entrepreneurship education has systematically been implemented there from the beginning. Meanwhile, there are also a number of awards in primary education, mostly running under categories like “self-efficacy” or “empowering every child” and following the tradition of emancipatory entrepreneurship education approaches. There are also extracurricular activities, such as an evaluation approach in which models of self-assessment and peer-assessment were developed for the evaluation of key competencies of lifelong learning, including entrepreneurship competences. This was done by a group of teachers on their own initiative, without being linked to any teaching subject.
The award is mainly a symbolic certification and it includes no money. Winners normally receive a voucher for a breakfast for two, which symbolically should stress the significance of close relationships, partnerships or friendships, who often suffer from the intense workload of the awarded persons in terms of less quality time together.

Breaking barriers for impact
In terms of challenges, they are related two main themes, awareness and attention. One challenge lies in the overarching awareness of the topic, which should be sharpened by the award. In Austria, not all federal states are committed to the same extent to entrepreneurship education, some are still relatively “far away”. Entrepreneurship education can be promoted, among others, by school boards (in Austria “education directorates”). In Vienna, for example, there is currently an education director who has taught entrepreneurship himself and thus promotes the topic. The other challenge is media attention. It would be beneficial if teachers, pupils, parents, principals and other stakeholders could read about the award or other entrepreneurship education-activities in the newspaper, but unfortunately there are reservations on the part of most media representatives for competitions and festivals from the education sector. “I know some editors-in-chief really well,” says Lindner, “and when I say to them, ‘Well, wouldn’t that be a nice story for you?’ they say, ‘Education issues are politics – and we only do critical reporting here. Anything that is positive reporting in that area is paid for. And if you can pay for it, I will be happy to put you in touch with the marketing department, and then we will do it.’” So, education has a tough standing in that regard and gets less media attention thanother topics such as sports, also receive “positive coverage”.
In overcoming challenges, next to school boards which can promote the award, an important supporting factor is the directors at the school. They are usually present at the ceremony and thus show the awarded teachers their support. In addition, most of them proudly communicate the award to the outside world, for example in the directors’ association. Furthermore, more ambivalent than in the case of the directors might be the situation when it comes to the colleges of the awarded teachers. There is sometimes a peculiar form of jealousy among teachers. “At some schools not at all, but at others very much so,” says Lindner. “I can imagine that some teachers do not want to make a big deal about it at their own school, because they are afraid that they won’t get good feedback.” At other sites, however, the whole school throws a party. One can only wish that something like this happens more often in the spirit of celebration culture. After all, Lindner says, among teachers in particular, the celebration culture “certainly still has room for improvement.”
In terms of immediate impacts, schools whose teachers win an award can consider it as an important confirmation of their activities and orientation. Another rather general impact is the image of teachers. Positive examples of activities and personalities are opposed to the conventional stereotypes and thus can positively change the public teacher image. Nevertheless, the award remains the easiest to communicate to the target group of teachers and is well known – “at least among those teachers who are open to the field of entrepreneurship.”
Among the awards that have made a particularly lasting impression, Lindner cites two examples: One is a teacher who, when presented the award, openly admitted how sceptical she was in the very beginning, and thus said: “Well, when it started at our school with entrepreneurship, I didn’t know what to do with it at all. I just thought, another new thing, and anyway, do we really need this?” But over time she saw how the pupils grew and suddenly teaching became much easier.
Another example, a teacher who had made it clear from the beginning that she was “unionised through and through”, but gradually learned how in the entrepreneurship education, both sides, employer and employee, “go together” really well. What is more, for this particular teacher, it was four years before her retirement and thus it was a real push that allowed her to experience something new and exciting.
According to Lindner, the award is a symbol for the need of more celebration culture in education, especially among teachers. The role model for this can be sports, where it is always honoured when someone works continuously on something and then achieves success. Even if this should fail to materialise. Since this is about appreciation and recognition, the development of our personality depends on it. Moreover, it also has something to do with a locomotive function, because the next generation of pupils (and teachers) may then say, “Well, what they can do, we can do too!”

Coordinator of project/initiative:
Johannes Lindner
Website
https://www.ifte.at/educatoroftheyear

Image credit: IFTE

History of the initiative
The initiative was at first launched in school year 2019-20 and one full cycle of workshops was organised. The idea for Entrepreneurship Academy emerged from previous initiatives co-ordinated by Mr Dawid Szczepankiewicz and Jasło Business Association and co-financed by the National Bank of Poland. These include the Youngsters and Entrepreneurship initiative (Młodzież i Przedsiębiorczość), which was first established in 2017 as a response to the exodus of young people from the area of Jasło to bigger cities in Poland or abroad. Local entrepreneurs realised there was a drain of young people who could potentially work at local businesses or factories, but they preferred to leave the city instead. Although the entrepreneurs were aware of the process, they had no idea how to stop it and they were not able to establish effective collaboration with local schools who had different visions concerning future of the young people.
For that reason, and as a response to those needs presented, Jasło Business Association launched the Youngsters and Entrepreneurship initiative for primary school students, with special engagement of Dawid, and financial help from the National Bank of Poland (as part of their Economic Education programme) and the City of Jasło. The initiative comprised entrepreneurship-related workshops (elements of public relations and economics, legal aspects of managing companies, entrepreneurship education), visits at local companies and factories, visits to the National Bank of Poland, to the Kopernik Science Centre in Warsaw and to Polish parliament (Sejm RP). What is more, a competition concerning interesting business ideas was organised and students were involved in Oxford debates during which they discussed current situation of young people in the local business market. When the youngsters were graduating from local primary schools they were asking for the continuation of the initiative and that gave rise to Entrepreneurship Academy which targets secondary school students.
Organisers of the Entrepreneurship Academy were also organisers of previous entrepreneurship-oriented initiatives whose participants wanted to further develop entrepreneurship-related skills. Previous initiatives were aimed at primary school students; when those students graduated and started secondary school, they would ask about similar initiatives and they willingly enrolled to Entrepreneurship Academy. Furthermore, the school that organisers of the initiative co-operated with made other students aware of the possibility of enrolment.
Entrepreneurship Academy actively seeks out synergies with local administration and local companies to discuss aspects that need to be elaborated on during workshops, they identify current gaps in the job market and opportunities for development in general. Local entrepreneurs, teachers, local administration and the local community in general are stakeholders in the initiative, as they strongly benefit from the economic development of young inhabitants. Even at the level of secondary school, many students tend to move to bigger cities, even though Jasło offers nice opportunities for secondary education and therefore it is extremely important to encourage students to stay there.
Entrepreneurship Academy operates in a local environment that is favourable for the implementation of activities fostering entrepreneurship-related development of young people. Local entrepreneurs, schools and local authorities see a need for educating students in order to meet the challenges of the contemporary job market, especially in the area (district) of Jasło in order to show young people that it is possible to stay there for life and still find a business niche to fill.

Aims and objectives
The goals of the Entrepreneurship Academy are connected with development of entrepreneurship-related skills and competencies among secondary school students. Students are given chance to develop entrepreneurship-related skills and to learn how to set up one’s own business. Activities involve group and individual work in person.

Activities and learning outcomes
Participants are given opportunity to talk to various businesspeople and they can design individual development pathway. They talk to the consultants about business ideas, career development, etc. There were also workshops offered in order to show participants how business works, how to be entrepreneurial and what possibilities of development they had in their local area. Methods of learning include discussions, brainstorming, workshops, case studies, individual meetings and consultancy. These are delivered through the following activities:
• Workshops in the area of entrepreneurship (on the personal and professional level), public relations, economics and finances and legal aspects of business that helped students understand basic economy-related mechanisms.
• Visits at local companies in order to understand how work is organised at given sectors, what the needs of local businesses are and which areas of expertise are being looked for. This, in turn, gave them the chance to choose their future profession in accordance with the needs of the local job market and this way strengthen their chances of getting a good job after graduating from school or, later, from university.
• Visits at National Bank of Poland where students learn about the history of money and Polish monetary system, the functioning of the Central Bank and they were instructed on how to check the authenticity of banknotes in general circulation.
• Meetings with local entrepreneurs once a month, where students have an opportunity to meet a local entrepreneur who told them about the specificity of his/her work, the specificity of a given business sector and challenges and opportunities associated with it. Students could ask questions and they had the opportunity to learn more about local businesses and find niches which they could fill in the future, after graduation. They also could get feedback concerning their business ideas and their future professional development plans.
• Visits at universities in Rzeszów, which is the closest university city and the most popular target of inhabitants of Jasło and its area who want to study at university: students visited two universities located in Rzeszów (University of Rzeszów and Technical University of Rzeszów) to see the potential of local higher education institutions, to visit their career offices and to learn about current educational offers of those universities.
• Open Space Debate, an open debate of students, teachers, school management, local government and entrepreneurs concerning the local business and labour market from the perspective of the youth. Students participating in the project will moderate the debate. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the debate could not be organised, but it will be organised after the pandemic.
Breaking barriers for impact
The barriers that initially made the collaboration difficult were the lack of understanding and communication between teachers and entrepreneurs as they blamed each other for the brain drain in the city. As well as the lack of ideas of what to do to get young people stay to in their hometown and boost its economy.
Initially some teachers showed resistance to make it possible for business trainers to use their lesson time to carry out workshops and organise meetings with entrepreneurs. The problem was solved in such a way that some workshops were offered as part of certain school subjects and others during students’ free time (e.g. Saturdays).
Other barriers included too many extra-curricular activities available for students and, as a result, students and their parents were at a loss which activity is really valuable and competence-building. At times of widespread digitalisation and mobility of information and data, contemporary students who do not know any other reality, think that all opportunities surrounding them will be available forever. This meant extra effort of the Entrepreneurship Academy organisers to recruit students at the initial stage. The initiative was also co-financed by the National Bank of Poland when it started, but now Entrepreneurship Academy is currently not receiving any funding as it was financed only for one year (2019-20). The initiative is suspended for now (also because of the pandemic), but there are plans to launch it once again.
These barriers were overcome by the determination of the initiator of the project and by consensus reached by school and business environments. The engagement of the organisers (Jasło Business Association) and especially Dawid, who came up with the idea of the project, found schools and teachers open for such co-operation and the quality of workshops made students motivated and interested. The openness of some school authorities and local entrepreneurs who integrated their knowledge and efforts made it possible to create the idea of Entrepreneurship Academy. Furthermore, the joint vision of local entrepreneurs, organisers and school authorities that was a result of long talks and great efforts of the initiators and trainers (Mr Dawid Szczepankiewicz and Ms Magdalena Walczyk-Szczepankiewicz) and Jasło Business Association enabled the launch and development of the activities of Entrepreneurship Academy.
Other supporting factors include the commitment of the National Bank of Poland, and the motivation of participating students. The National Bank of Poland, due to its recognisability, encouraged students to enrol and businesspeople to actively contribute. The professional attitudes and engagement of organisers to offer interesting content of workshops and the general vision of the initiative and great efforts and creativity of trainers to offer interesting workshops for students.
In terms of impact, Entrepreneurship Academy supported local community of people living in Jasło city or in neighbouring towns by offering development opportunities of young people who may find future employment in the area of their residence and this way do not need to move and build their life from scratch somewhere else, in a bigger city in Poland or abroad. At the same time, it helped the local business environment as it developed young people in areas that local entrepreneurs find crucial and necessary for their businesses to flourish. The activities of the Academy brought entrepreneurs, schoolteachers and authorities, local administration and citizens closer together and helped them set common goals aimed at improving their daily life quality.

Co-ordinator
Dawid Szczepankiewicz
[email protected]

Website:
http://jsp.org.pl/

Social media / relevant online channels:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeJoWCx-1XpeBGSbxc2PPgw

https://www.facebook.com/jasielskie.stowarzyszenie.przedsiebiorcow

Image credit: Entrepreneurship Academy

History of the initiative
Founded in 1937, the University of Economics in Katowice is public university based in Katowice, Poland. The university is the biggest and oldest business school in the region and considered one of the top universities in Poland. The university hosts studies at Bachelor, Master, Doctoral and Post-diploma levels in four of studies field: Finance, Economics, Informatics and Communication and Management.
As a local activist, University of Economics in Katowice’s Bartłomiej Gabryś often visits schools where he organises entrepreneurship education-related workshops for students and teachers. Through this, Bartłomiej realised that many entrepreneurship education teachers only offer very theoretical knowledge to their students about entrepreneurship, such as how to set up one’s own company. However, they did not teach the process of developing a business idea, identifying market niches or how to look for information in today’s volatile business environment. These led Bartłomiej to try to meet the needs of teachers who wanted to teach entrepreneurship education in a modern way.
Bartłomiej and Professor Wojciech Dyduch, the former vice-Rector of the university, who also saw a need to treat entrepreneurship as a broader concept than just narrowly viewing it as regulations for managing a company. Professor Dyduch had the idea of preparing a cutting-edge postgraduate studies programme that would treat entrepreneurship education teaching in a complex way. Professor Dyduch also invited other four universities from various regions of Poland to build a consortium, and the project became big and attractive enough for National Bank of Poland to co-finance it.
Thus, the Entrepreneurship Education for Teachers programme was developed, with the studies co-financed by the National Bank of Poland. The main target group included in-service teachers and passive teachers who were not working at that time, provided they have master’s degrees in any subject. The was an enormous effort to make teachers aware of the studies, through personalised invitation letters which were sent to all schools in the Silesian voivodeship and the heads of those schools. Bartłomiej also made people aware of the initiative during various conference speeches and other initiatives he participated in. Apart from awareness raising, Professor Dyduch was able to source additional financing, thus, teachers paid only around one-sixth of the typical tuition fee that postgraduate students pay for the programme. Classes were also organised over weekends so that it did not interfere with teachers’ school activities.

Aims and objectives
The main goal of the initiative was to prepare participating teachers to teach entrepreneurship education in a practical way and allow them to show their students how to become a proactive member of society. The aim was also to equip teachers with the tools to teach students how to actively look for information and resources, organise their time effectively, come up with interesting business ideas, and make those ideas work in practice. Activities were performed in person and included group and individual work.
Activities and learning outcomes
Teachers were given chance to understand what entrepreneurship is, to develop entrepreneurship-related skills and ways of fostering these skills among their students. The teachers were not only offered interesting courses and meetings with experts on the subject, but were also able to download all the presentations, which were made freely available to be used as teaching aids.
The main content elements covered were entrepreneurship-related content and teaching methodology-related content. All the different types of classes had defined practical teaching efforts and learning outcomes which had to be met; for instance, after a class related to preparing business plans, participants had to prepare a business plan. Thus, participants learnt practical skills which could later help them become better entrepreneurship education teachers. At the end of the programme participants defended their theses and took the final examination during which they were asked to discuss entrepreneurship-related questions concerning the classes they participated in, their teaching internship and their theses. Also, after each class, the participants had a task to do, which was often a practical task.
The courses proposed as part of Entrepreneurship Education for Teachers postgraduate studies are presented below:
• Classes which were conducted in an interactive way and the issues addressed were carefully selected on the basis of a needs analysis.
• Workshops which made it possible for students to see how certain mechanisms or teaching techniques work in practice.
• Lectures in their classic form were kept to a minimum, but those lectures that were delivered, were done so by individuals who were able to share know-how with the students in the mechanisms of economy, the needs of young people with relation to entrepreneurship-related knowledge and modern methods of entrepreneurship education teaching.
• A diploma seminar where participants were given the opportunity to do their own research in entrepreneurship education-related areas. Their diploma works were double reviewed, so high quality documents could be shared amongst the participants and thus interesting material that could be used during their own teaching was developed.
• Teaching internships where students had to practice teaching entrepreneurship education at schools and the aim was not only to practice teaching, but also to see if their newly-gained knowledge could be used to teach entrepreneurship education in an improved, more practical way.

Breaking barriers for impact
There were three main challenges that the organisers had to face before launching the studies. The first barrier related to financing – the organisers were aware that target students may not have been able to pay the tuition fee as teachers in Poland often are underpaid and even paying the fee for cheapest postgraduate studies may be a challenge for them. Thus, external financial sources had to be located. This challenge was overcome after securing funding from the National Bank of Poland.
The next barrier concerned getting to the right target group. The organisers assumed that many teachers may not even look for postgraduate education opportunities due to their financial condition. What is more, in order to participate in the programme of the National Bank of Poland, organisers had to recruit around 50 students. Therefore, the study offer was presented during various conferences for teachers and, personalised invitations were sent to all public schools and their heads in Silesian voivodeship.
Lastly, only one cycle of the programme was co-financed, as the regulations concerning support for such initiatives by the National Bank of Poland changed and the studies were offered a higher price. Thus, the programme could not be afforded by teachers and further iterations of the programme were not undertaken. The organisers hope to continue the programme in the future.
The determination and vision of the main organiser who came up with the study idea, prepared programme and selected the best teachers were the main supporting factors that helped overcome many obstacles. The help of Professor Dyduch in finding external financial support and in building consortium with other Polish universities, was a large supporting factor. The commitment of National Bank of Poland which not only co-financed the initiative, but also, due to its recognisability, encouraged students to enrol and businesspeople to contribute as presenters of the course. In the organisation of the programme, the huge financial support of the National Bank of Poland and the expertise of University of Economics in Katowice in managing such initiatives, gave students many additional incentives. For instance, administrative support during and after classes.
The graduated participants still work as teachers and despite the recent crisis they did not lose their jobs. Some graduated participants became social activists inspiring other teachers, students and other underpaid groups to develop themselves. Many Polish teachers need to teach more than one subject at more than one school to support themselves financially. Taking into consideration the economic situation of some teachers in Poland it was great opportunity for the teachers participating. The Entrepreneurship Education for Teachers postgraduate programme created opportunities for extra sources of income and better job security as participants could teach entrepreneurship education as another subject. Students also benefit from the emphasis on practical entrepreneurial skills in the classroom. As for the University of Economics in Katowice, the co-operation with National Bank of Poland and the success of the programme added to its prestige.

Featured image by Bartłomiej Gabryś

History of the initiative
The objective of the Doctoral School of Education at the University of Szeged is to prepare students for engaging in a wide spectrum of research activities related to learning and instruction, for applying a plethora of research methods, and for studying the social, economic and historical conditions of schooling. The course has no previous educational traditions, and the first time it was organised was in 2020. The PhD course took place in a total of 15 hours duration, on three occasions in November and December 2020.
The direct antecedents of the course go back to a European Union funded project carried out in co-operation with selected primary schools in six countries. It is important to extend the general approach and the results achieved in a broader context, too. The international students who are learning at the Doctoral School are properly fit to this purpose. The organiser of the background project underlines that the general methodology was developed at the Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) after which the PhD course was organised by University of Szeged (USz).
The main target group of the initiative is the international PhD students in the field of Education Sciences. At the PhD level students/participants are highly motivated to learn and the range of the students’ future workplaces is wide and may vary from higher education institutes, universities, research centres, to primary and secondary schools.

Aims and objectives
The main goal of the course is to help the students to understand the relationship between entrepreneurial competence, sustainability, and civic education. By thinking in this framework, they can embed this approach into any further developmental programme (i.e. into their everyday teaching practice, subject-related activities). An additional aim is forming attitudes based on students’ own experiences, prior knowledge in the field of entrepreneurship education and education for sustainability.
Activities and learning outcomes
The programme is an elective seminar course in English for international PhD students at the Doctoral School of Education (3×5 hours) in the Autumn 2020/2021 semester. In the Doctoral School the students select the preferred courses from the elective courses list first, then sign up for the planned courses. There are between 8-12 participants in each cycle and individual and group work are frequently used work forms. Its realisation is based on analogue (face-to-face) methods but the course is adaptable to a digital environment as well.
To achieve these aims, the main content elements covered in the course include:
• Entrepreneurial culture and their interdisciplinary connections.
• Social entrepreneurship.
• Developing social entrepreneurship competences as a part of social-emotional education (SEL).
• Teaching and learning with student-orientated strategy, project-oriented- and challenge-based learning.
• Educational models and frameworks of developing entrepreneurial competencies for all kinds of schools, teaching-learning forms and in different subjects.
• Planning and managing learning projects and situations at different level of education based on the Youth Start/UKids framework.
The course is based on a usable pedagogical innovation in everyday school practice applying the challenge-based methodology with existing materials and tools to develop children’s social-emotional skills.
The students examine the theoretical and practical basis of entrepreneurship education from different scientific viewpoints. International students analyse the curriculum of this area in their home country, explain the problems and possibilities for others. A flexible and transferable interdisciplinary learning programme with wide methodological tools is discussed for successful implementation of entrepreneurship competence at primary and secondary levels of education. Finding a suitable methodology and adapting it into the school practice and teacher-training programme of a given country is also an important part of the course.
Students are encouraged to make a connection between the acquired knowledge and the educational traditions of their home country; assess the presented teaching tools and create usable materials on their teaching area by adapting the pedagogical materials (class books, student activity books, animated videos, mindfulness exercises and non-violent communication exercises).
The main learning outputs produced in the PhD course are:
• course diaries from each student (documentations and reflections)
• challenge-based project plan (pair- or group work)
• short essay and presentation about the problems and (hypothetical) opportunities of entrepreneurship education at schools in their home country.
Students also receive credits and grades for completing the course. The grade includes a seminar activity, a power-point presentation and a compilation of a project plan.

Breaking barriers for impact
On a policy and systematic level, the educators’ methodological and conceptual freedom allows for the successful implementation of the initiative. On the other hand, a supportive atmosphere and hosting of a professional community, as well as a commitment to the topic and the building a supportive network or community support success on an organisational and individual level, respectively.
Finally, one of the most important results of the most important results of the course is sensitisation: the elements of entrepreneurial competence are incorporated into students’ everyday thinking, they can apply them in their everyday lives, or they can transfer and extend them to another project. An interesting observation from the course was that international students have more positive view of entrepreneurship. It was also a fantastic that they think women today should also do business and be an entrepreneur. This bodes well for the future of entrepreneurship education, and entrepreneurship in general.

Co-ordinator of project/initiative:
Dr M. Hercz
https://pak.elte.hu/Ukids
http://www.youthstart.eu/en/terms/
https://u-szeged.hu/doctoral/education-phd?folderID=20702&folderID=20702&objectParentFolderId=20702
Social media / relevant online channels:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChLwMCmS6WBrUKnnenY4uHA
Publications, resources, course material
• Davies, I., Evans, M., Fülöp, M., Kiwan, D., Peterson, A., Sim, J. B.-Y. (eds.). Taking action for change: Educating for youth civic engagement and activism. York: University of York
• Hercz, M., Pozsonyi, F. & Takács, N. 2020. Supporting a Sustainable Way of Life-long Learning in the Frame of Challenge-based Learning. Discourse and Communication for Sustainable Education
• Lindner, J. (2018). Entrepreneurship education for a sustainable future. Discourse and Communication for Sustainable Education, 9(1), 115–127.

Featured image by University of Szeged

The European Union (EU), through its Higher Education Agenda, has identified entrepreneurship education as a top priority for the years to come (EC 2017; 2019). Entrepreneurial competencies, such as curiosity, creativity and many more, are believed to be ‘decisive for lifelong learning’ and for the survival of our prosperous economy (EC 2017). If taught from a very young age, entrepreneurial skills will enable our future leaders to be more innovative and productive in the social, private, and public sectors. Nonetheless, the understanding of entrepreneurship education (EE) remains limited even amongst teachers themselves and several EU governments have failed to promote policy that favours the teaching of EE in Initial Teacher Education (ITE).
With this premise, the Erasmus+ funded project Young Entrepreneurial Teachers Initiative (YETI) is launched to tackle these issues and to empower the first cohort of ITE students to teach entrepreneurial skills to their (future) pupils. YETI is a follow-up project of the Partnership for Initial Entrepreneurship Teacher Education (PIETE) that has the goal to raise awareness about EE amongst ITE educators.

YETI partners have set several objectives within the project:
• To empirically assess the terminological and conceptual understanding of EE among ITE students.
• To raise awareness for the educational benefits of EE among ITE students.
• To acquaint ITE students with entrepreneurial intervention methods, profile their entrepreneurial competence portfolio and enable them to integrate elements of EE into their practical teaching.
• To help teacher candidates to translate gained EE knowledge from rather simulative university contexts into actual classroom environments at an early stage of their teaching career.
• To showcase actual EE interventions of students to inspire other European ITE stakeholder.
• To enhance the level of entrepreneurial learning interventions at the school level by embracing a new generation of well proficient entrepreneurial teachers.

As mentioned, YETI will primarily target ITE students. More specifically, the programme focusses on students that are going through their first teaching experience either through internships – “practicum” – or the in-service “induction” phase. The goal is to help them develop entrepreneurial intervention methods, as well as enabling them to integrate elements of EE in their teaching. In addition, the programme will also impact ITE educators that will prepare and supervise the (aspiring) teachers, and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and schools, with special regard to school leaders as they will be the ones evaluating and supervising the future teachers. Finally, throughout the YETI journey, we will produce a total of six outputs to support the target groups in the achievement of the goals and objectives abovementioned.

These include:
• A Teacher Pathway Report, which serves as a map of the different educational pathways undergone by aspiring teachers, from ITE to autonomous teaching.
• A Conceptual Screening Report that assesses the ITE students’ terminological and conceptual understanding of EE
• A Personal Entrepreneurial Canvas Model, aiming to raise awareness about the educational benefits of EE.
• A School Transfer Strategy Handbook that translates EE knowledge from a simulative university context into an actual classroom environment, pointing out the challenges of knowledge transfer from ITE to a classroom setting.
• An Entrepreneurial Education Hub to collect material, such as tools, activity ideas, lesson plans and more, and make them available globally to stimulate entrepreneurial teaching interventions.
• Lastly, an Intervention Showcase Collection that gathers 15+ successful cases of entrepreneurial learning interventions, that are part of curricular teaching in ITE (senior) students.

To conclude, the YETI project will have a lifelong impact on generations to come by teaching fundamental skills that will enable our future leaders to be more innovative and productive in their day-to-day life.

Authored by Mario Ceccarelli, UIIN.
YETI website can be accessed here: https://yetiproject.eu/

Education is a challenge for educators all over the world since it is questionable how learners can be educated to become responsible citizens in different areas, including in the field of social entrepreneurship. A special course called “Entrepreneurship Culture and Education” was introduced at the University of Szeged’s Doctoral School of Education in order to support international students in their understanding of the relationship between entrepreneurial competence, sustainability and civic education. This approach is in line with the aims of the PIETE Project, as the course intends to foster competences that can be further embedded into the educators’ everyday work lives, for example in their teaching practice, subject-related activities).

A flexible and transferable interdisciplinary learning programme with wide methodological tools were discussed. Finding a suitable methodology and adapting it into the school practice and teacher-training programme of a given country was also an integral part of the course. Forming attitudes based on students’ own experiences, mapping prior knowledge in the field of entrepreneurship education and education for sustainability were also the aims of the course. The course is based on a usable pedagogical innovation in everyday school practice applying the challenge-based methodology with existing materials and tools to develop children’s social-emotional skills.

The students examined the theoretical and practical basis of entrepreneurship education from different scientific viewpoints. International students analysed the curriculum of this area in their home country and explained the problems and possibilities for others. It was interesting to see that international students had much more positive image of entrepreneurs than Hungarians had. It was also an enlightening finding that most of the students highlighted the importance of female entrepreneurship.
One of the most important results is the sensitisation. The elements of entrepreneurial competence are incorporated into students’ everyday thinking, and they can apply them in their everyday life or they can transfer or extend them to another project.

Authored by Szabolcs Prónay, University of Szeged
Photo: Assorted Books on Shelf by Element5 Digital

Entrepreneurship skills are undeniably important for contemporary society, especially for teachers who shape new generations and have a great influence on their prospective career and quality of life. Although each year new entrepreneurship-related initiatives can be spotted in Poland, still not all teachers, teacher educators or students are lucky enough to participate in workshops or courses aiming at developing entrepreneurship-related skills. At a first glance one could think that such trainings are only for inhabitants of big cities and teacher educators from large, recognisable universities who seem to be more aware of their importance. It is, however, a misconception. We present you an example of an entrepreneurial municipialiy on a smaller size.
Wilamowice is a small municipiality of an urban-rural character around the area of Bielsko-Biała, where people mainly are employed at local factories, make their living from farming or work at Bielsko-Biała or other Silesian cities. The municipiality comprises the town Wilamowice and 5 villages: Pisarzowice, Dankowice, Hecznarowice, Stara Wieś i Zasole Bielańskie.
Local authorities and people organising the work of local teachers, thanks to European funds they skilfully apply for, create many opportunities for inhabitants of the municipality. Those opportunities revolve around the development of students and teachers and making the life of local people easier. Few examples of those initiatives are creation and participation in a project protecting people against digital exclusion thanks to which free Internet and hardware is delivered to some people. School in Hecznarowice, thanks to some teachers (including UBB graduates) and local authorities (especially the head of School and Kindergarten Management Association – Zakład Obsługi Szkół I Przedszkoli), created opportunities for kids from the municipiality participating in municipal assemblies, workshops connected with effective communication and public speaking. The workshop was carried out by a UBB employee who is the PIETE project partner and who made the participant aware of the importance of communication skills and other skills connected with Entrecomp. The young participants were very active during the workshop, they asked many questions with relation to public speaking issues and competencies important to become successful in professional life. It was apparent that young people want to develop and, if given a hand, they can be very determined and motivated to aim high and develop themselves. The meeting was fruitful enough to give rise to other plans connected with developing skills of the local people. In October 2020, a series of workshops for chosen teachers working in the area of the municipiality will be organised. Some of those workshops will again be carried out by UBB PIETE partner who will train the teachers with relation to public speaking, effective communication and stress management at work. At the same time the idea of PIETE project will be presented and key entrepreneurship competences will be elaborated on. This way teachers will become more aware of the importance of an entrepreneurial mindset and teach better and make young generations of municipiality students aware of competencies they need to develop.

As it can be seen, not only larger cities and largest universities can change the mindset of people and make their world better; also small villages, municipialities and smaller universities can inspire people to develop themselves and broaden their horizons. Thanks to the combination of opportunities created by local authorities, staff at HEIs and teachers and students willing to leave their comfort zone and plunge deep into lifelong learning the development is to be observed, no matter how big or small a given village, town or city is. So, answering the question asked in the title of the post, we must say that a person from a small town doesn’t have fewer opportunities if people involved in their education are open-minded and willing to develop and if that person is motivated enough. With the help of a good, open-minded teacher who is aware of many important competencies that should be trained by young people, one can achieve much, no matter where they live.

Authored by: Anna Wieczorek, University of Bielsko-Biala

The future needs smart solutions – and who could develop them better than the generation of digital natives?! To support them during the implementation stage of their digital ideas, the Univations GmbH and Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) jointly offer a new initiative, the “Digital Talent Accelerator” (DTA). The project was established in 2019 based on a call for new digital initiatives l by the Ministry of Economics, Science and Digitalisation of the State of Saxony-Anhalt.

David Köhler, a studied cultural scientist and one of the three project officers that are responsible for DTA, has agreed to provide some insights into the initiative for this PIETE E-Zine:
“The main aim of the project is to raise awareness for the possibility of founding a digital start-up and to enable pupils to do so” David Köhler says. “Whether it is an app, a website, a VR application or a digital substitution plan for their own school, the participants are supported by coaches from the IT start-up scene in developing and working out their digital projects. They learn how to transform their ideas into a business plan and what steps it takes to put it into practice” he continues. DTA curriculum consists of four different “sections”. Two of them focus on IT (web-coding and app-coding), the other two concentrate on business management (business/finances and marketing/design). The pupils are entirely free to choose the section which they want to pursue.

The project addresses pupils in schools of Saxony-Anhalt, who are in 8th to 12th grade (age: 14-19 years). To add, the DTA project schedule runs in parallel to the overall school year plan of the participating pupils. The main motivation for pupils to take part in DTA is the possibility to implement their own project from an idea to a fully working prototype. “Also learning how to write a software program, to set up a marketing campaign or to create a corporate identity can be the motivation for a participation“ David Köhler adds.
In addition, the initiative offers a series of workshops for teachers: The main topics of these advanced trainings are digitization of education, the use of digital media, and the integration of digital topics and methods in the classroom. Teachers are informed about the chances of the digitalization and related business topics, so they can discuss these with their pupils.
In November 2019, the project started with its first round, which is divided into three interconnected phases: First, interdisciplinary teams develop and substantiate their start-up ideas from the digital environment at a boot camp (Phase 1). However, pupils without a start-up idea are also motivated to participate. In fact, DTA facilitates the forming of new teams and enables them to jointly design and specify new ideas on the spot. Further, all teams receive support from coaches and founders from the IT scene. Once completed, the specific idea sketch of each teams is submitted.

In the second phase, the submitted ideas are reviewed by mentors that prepare constructive feedback the teams may exploit to improve their concepts. Based on these evaluations an individual workshop program is designed for each team. Coaches and founders from the IT scene support the pupils in deepening their skills and competences, developing a prototype, and imparting the necessary knowledge.
The third phase is all about presenting the ideas, including prototypes, at the final pitch-event to an expert audience of representatives from regional IT and start-up companies. Finally, the best ideas are honoured and rewarded. In fact, the first full DTA round was successfully completed with such a closing pitch-event in July 2020. However, other than planned, the event had to be implemented virtually due to the COVID-19 crisis that evolved in the middle of the first DTA round.
When asked how the piloting of the project went during the times of COVID-19, David Köhler replied: “The first year was a big challenge. The kick-off event was held in the planned way, but all workshops and the final pitch-event were held online. This was foreseen differently. Despite these sudden changes, we were very impressed and relieved, that the motivation of the pupils was not harmed. They worked hard, had a lot of questions to the mentors and developed very detailed and promising business concepts and products”.

The digital pitch-event of DTA. Credits: Ulf Büschleb

The mentors, who support the participants with detailed feedback on their ideas and (business) plans, are specialised in various fields. There are founders of local start-up companies (e.g. 3DQR GmbH and DIE FRISCHEMANUFAKTUR GmbH), IT specialists who carry out coding-workshops for girls (e.g. codegirls.de), founding consultants (e.g. MLU Transfer and Start-up service) as well as representatives from science (e.g. Institute of Computer Science of the MLU) and politics (Ministry of Economics, Science and Digitalisation of the State of Saxony-Anhalt).
A dedicated mentor network will also support participating pupils in the next DTA round, from November 2020 until July 2021. “At the moment we are organising the upcoming events and are very glad to bring in the experiences from the first period. The online workshops worked out well, so from now on we will implement both digital and analogue workshops. This will also simplify the participation of pupils from rural areas” he says with anticipation.

The Digital Talent Accelerator is an initial step into the world of entrepreneurship. Participants, who subsequently want to start-up based on their DTA experience may seek direct service and consultation of established stakeholders in the region, such as the MLU Transfer- and Start-up-service. After piloting DTA in 2019-2020, it is expected to become an integral part of the extra-curricular learning opportunities landscape for Saxony-Anhalt pupils in each of the upcoming years.
Digital Talent Accelerator is carried out as part of the ego. Business start-up offensive of the State of Saxony-Anhalt and funded by the Ministry of Economics, Science and Digitalisation of the State of Saxony-Anhalt and the European Social Fund (ESF).

Want to know more about the project? Visit Digital Talent Accelerator or get in touch with the DTA Team ()

Authored by: Sandra Bier & Florian Bratzke, Univations, cover photo: Unrau Fotografie

The COVID-19 pandemic reaching Europe in the spring of 2020 has created new challenges for the population of developed democracies at various levels. None of the Western societies have an age group which have not been affected directly or indirectly by the pandemic. Looking back on the happenings in the spring and summer of 2020, we consider that one of the defining characteristics of the events is certainly manifested in a general sense of stress and high level of certainty.

How much stress does the COVID-19 pandemic entail and who can be the winners of the current situation?
Stress and uncertainty have always been an integral part of the existence of humanity, what is more, during history the survivors of traumatising and demanding events have always been those who could quickly adjust to changing circumstances. The source of external stress and uncertainty affecting societies shows great diversity and variety (e.g. wars, threat, limited resources), and there are many among the older members of today’s population in Europe who have experienced outstanding historical occurrences or experienced and survived traumatising events. However, the population of today’s Europe does not include people who have direct experiential knowledge on the adequate management of a worldwide epidemic. In this respect, we can only rely on collective knowledge and historical experience, which definitely raises concerns.

We did not follow to what extent the pandemic dominated the media and mass communication channels in other countries during spring and summer, however, the messages communicated in the Hungarian media and the measurements implemented in spring (e.g. announcing the state of emergency, the television speeches of the Prime Minister, dedicated timeframes for shopping for the elderly, closure of borders, hospital visit ban, closure of kindergartens, schools and higher education institutions) clearly indicated for the citizens that times were difficult. We can establish without any exaggeration that in the spring period of 2020 the Hungarian mass communications and political discourse, deliberately or not, were strongly permeated by fear appeal.
At the same time, the degree of fear cannot be objectively assessed at an overall social level, as individuals are highly diverse; it is defined by habitus and stimulus threshold what a person considers as a source of stress. In the situation that has developed – today and in the near future – presumably the problem-solving strategies of the individuals who intend to be objective and assess risks rationally can be efficient. The “winners” will probably be those who can tolerate stress and uncertainty and who can maximise the “really important few” and let go of the “unimportant many” among their everyday tasks. If we think about it, it is actually about the efficient mobilisation of the skills of entrepreneurship competence. In this situation, those who already have an entrepreneurial approach and consciously make use of the application of this approach can have a step forward, i.e. as the Chinese saying goes, “Victory comes from finding opportunities in problems”.

How have higher education and teacher education changed and can change during and after the pandemic?
The discontinuation of the education based on personal presence took the institutions of Hungarian public education (primary and secondary schools) by surprise and most of them were unprepared. The schools responded to the switch to so-called digital education in quite a heterogonous manner. The teachers of certain institutions kept contact with the students in an asynchronous way, with the help of an intermediary platform for teaching materials, where the students were forced to solve the assigned exercises offline relying on themselves (and the support of their parents) and “upload” them within a deadline. The teachers of other institutions held real-time lessons in a virtual classroom in the framework of synchronous education, mostly through applying Zoom or Jit.si.
Similar solutions were used in the Hungarian higher education, including initial teacher education. Besides exploiting the possibilities provided by ICT, much depended on the attitude of the educators. The teachers considering humane aspects recognised it from the beginning that the students could not be expected to fulfil the requirements and tasks defined at the start of the university semester, while other teachers who were able to completely ignore the environmental effects argued that the students can actually be demanded more of because they did not have to concentrate on anything else but learning.
The above described examples are mostly extreme cases, in reality, actions are affected by a variety of external and internal factors (competences, personal values, beliefs), and the nature of the situation. Whichever approach educators and higher educational teachers apply in their work, we can claim that the pandemic considerably contributed to the enrichment and innovation of the methodological repertoire. It forced the teachers and educators less open to changes to make methodological modifications, while it enabled creative teachers and educators with an entrepreneurial approach to try new opportunities: the conscious application of this approach allowed solving unexpected situations more efficiently.
It can be concluded that COVID has posed new challenges for teachers and educators in teacher training. The challenges have emerged in an extremely complex way, which have entailed forming an unconventional way of life and applying new coping strategies. It can be generally established about the happenings of the past period that the individuals have tried to find a solution to the emerging situation alone or in professional communities. However, based on the interpretation of Bacigalupo et al. (2016), we know that an entrepreneurial approach means that the individual adapts to opportunities and transforms them to value for others as well, as it is easier to find good solutions to any kind problems collectively than individually. Presumably, the great challenge of the next period will be to prepare for that the virus will stay with us for an unpredictable period, thus professional communities, including the educators of teacher training, have to try to develop a new and safe framework for the (co)operation collectively.

Authored by: László Kinyó, Edit Tóth & Szabolcs Prónay, University of Szeged

Nowadays, people become more and more aware of the importance of certain skills in their professional and private life, such as the ability to manage one’s own time, communicate effectively, or have proactive life attitudes. It is not enough to merely teach young people about tangible topics, such as history, grammar of a given language, etc., but rather help them become proficient users of that language, reflect on history and to reflect and come to certain conclusions for the future and many more. Entrepreneurship education in its broad sense refers to many abilities and skills that are worth developing. There are some initiatives in the area, but still not enough; it is worth, however, to look at some good examples of entrepreneurship education aimed at youngsters in Poland.

Jasielskie Stowarzyszenie Przedsiębiorców (Jasło Business Association), thanks to the European Funds grant, made it possible for secondary school students from their area (School complex no 4 in Jasło) to get entrepreneurship-related skills. The initiative is a part of “Podkarpacki Ośrodek Wsparcia Ekonomii Społecznej” (The Podkarpacie Social Economy Support Association) which supports and coordinates a project with the same name. The objective of the project is to organize workshops for secondary school students in the following domains: planning skills (including professional planning software), setting up and managing one’s own business, forms of business ownership in Poland, typical mistakes connected with sole entrepreneurship. Each one of 60 afore mentioned participants will undergo a 12-hour workshop dedicated to the relevant skills development. Eventually, Jasło Business Association will launch an offer of a comprehensive workshop comprising three modules with the hope to boost economisation in the region in the long run. The financial contribution to the project is only 9000 PLN (around 2 093 euro), yet it gives a chance for a better professional life for 60 young people. Project partners are Hetman Tarnowski Fundation and the Tarnobrzeg Academy of Regional development.
Previously, Jasło Business Association offered other relevant workshops devoted to social insurance, labour law, data processing and storing, free workshops concerning fund-acquisition skills, etc.

The Association, in cooperation with School complex no 4 in Jasło, also piloted Entrepreneurship Academy aimed at creating a free, extracurricular educational offer connected with entrepreneurship education and vocational education among secondary school students who are at the threshold of life decisions concerning their future profession, establishing their own companies or looking for their first job. 100 secondary school students from school complex no 4 in Jasło participated in the project between January – June 2019. Local entrepreneurs and a professional trainer volunteered to carry out panel discussions revolving around the following topics: “sole entrepreneurship vs a company”, “what sole entrepreneurship entails”, “is sole entrepreneurship better than being employed?”, “is it possible to combine sole entrepreneurship with being employed?”, “the potential of Jasło and its area for new entrepreneurships and employees”, “phases of establishing and developing companies”, “typical mistakes made by young entrepreneurs”, etc.. There were also workshops organized as a part of the pilot study. During the workshops 3 areas were tackled: setting objectives and planning based on value matrix, SMART planning, planning based on Walt Disney.

The pilot study was successful: the participants and their teachers were of the opinion that it was very developmental and necessary. For that reason Jasło Business Association applied for a grant to make it possible for students of other schools to develop their entrepreneurship skills and help them get ready to enter the job market. The work of Jasło Business Association and their partners is an excellent example of entrepreneurship-related initiative for young people in Poland and can be treated by other cities and their authorities and local entrepreneurs as a benchmark.

Authored by: Maciej Mitręga, University of Economics in Katowice

The PIETE project will produce a number of outputs which will be of use to those working in initial teacher education, specifically with regards to entrepreneurship education. These resources are open for all to use. In 2020, despite the challenges that were faced during times of COVID-19, PIETE made great progress and produced quality outputs. Here we will outline the achievements of 2020,

Magazines
In April and September 2020 two magazines were released highlighting entrepreneurship education initiatives across Europe. In these issues you can find a summary of the PIETE workshop that took place in Innsbruck, Austria; recommended books for school children related to entrepreneurship skills, and information on how to become an entrepreneurial school in Austria. These are just a few examples of the contents of our most recent biannual magazines

Initial Teacher Education Framework Report
The framework provides a basis to understand the functionality of Teacher Training Center (TTCs) in terms of institutional circumstances, curricular focus, and responsibilities of educators involved in ISCED 3-4 teacher development. It also allows the identification of areas in which elements of Entrepreneurship Education (EE) – as understood under the European Entrepreneurship Competence Framework (EntreComp) – can be most efficiently and suitably integrated.

Entrepreneurship Education Capacity Building Compilation
This document seeks to provide practical guidance to institutions that also interested in “opening the doors” for entrepreneurship education within ITE. A practical and hands-on guidebook, it provides support to initial teacher education (ITE) institutions which consider the fostering of entrepreneurship competences development as an important educational asset. The European Commission’s EntreComp Framework is described; concepts that may serve as hands-on tools for organising awareness-raising workshops are outlined; and examples of workshops that were implemented by the PIETE consortium in Hungary, Austria, and Poland are summarised.

PIETE Teaching Compendium
By now, only a few teaching resources from the field of EE are explicitly designated for use within ITE programmes within the European higher education institution landscape. Thus, the PIETE Teaching Compendium presents a rather novel form of support for educators in ITE programmes. This output develops, tests and compares innovative teaching methodologies (i.e. multidisciplinary curricula, learner-centered, real problem based, etc.) that can be used to enhance entrepreneurial competence and mind-set development within higher education pre-service teacher development programs.

PIETE Videos
Six of our partners give insights into the PIETE project itself, its outcomes and its relevance and importance for teachers and students. The videos can be found on the PIETE website homepage. After watching these videos you will have a greater understanding of the project and why it is important.You will also get to see some of the partners and learn more about their roles in the project.

Since 2011 it is possible for schools in Austria to be certified as an Entrepreneurship School. What is the general idea behind it and how does the process work?

Based on the priorities set by the European Union, both the Austrian Ministry of Education and the Education Directorates see Entrepreneurship Education (EE) as a particularly important component of good school education. This priority is highlighted in a certificate, which aims to make the certified school more attractive, confirms its holistic approach of Entrepreneurship activities as well as their goal-oriented and long-term implementation in everyday school life. Currently 61 schools are certified, 23 schools are in the process of being certified.

The certification serves as a measure to ensure and increase the quality of EE, which is already anchored as a general educational goal in the curricula of all vocational schools. It confirms that in the school concerned, entrepreneurship activities are implemented systematically on all levels from students to teachers to parents to companies, from classroom management to school leadership. If EE is to be sustainable, it must be integrated in the school development process and be supported and lived by all those involved. Young people should be supported in becoming innovative, sustainable and critical entrepreneurs as well as intrapreneurs. Consequently, measures to promote entrepreneurial thinking are as much an integral part of the everyday life of an Entrepreneurship School as the steady drive for personality development and education to become a responsible citizen.

Before a school decides on certification, a survey of the status quo (e.g. school culture, attitudes, authenticity) must be conducted. It is essential for a successful implementation and certification that the majority of the teachers and the school management are behind the certification. Appropriate training events should ensure that the teachers are familiarized with the principles of EE. Finally, the school formulates the goals of the certification, specifies concrete implementation measures and defines responsibilities. An entrepreneurship steering group will be set up, consisting of teachers from the various departments and actively involving the school management. The team must include a business teacher and a general educator.

The certification of an entire school usually takes a year or more and includes criteria from the following areas:

A. Activities at the school
B. Basics for teachers
C. Organizational framework
D. Additional freely selectable optional criteria

Mandatory criteria from area A – Basic Level:
– Organization of an Entrepreneurship Day
– Exploration of a company or organization
– Participation in an external competition for business ideas
– Extracurricular study groups (initiated by teachers)
– Presentation of EE measures at the open-door day
– Training Firm/Junior Company
– Commitment to sustainability, based on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
– Use of challenges from the YouthStart program (www.youthstart.eu)
– Working with digital tools

Mandatory criteria from area A – Advanced Level:
– Activities with reference to the Global Entrepreneurship Week (in November)
– Extracurricular study groups (initiated by students)
– Debating Club
– External additional qualifications of the students

Mandatory criteria from area B – Basic level:
– Basic training on the topic of EE
– Attendance of relevant seminars on the subject of EE
– Program for directors
– Internal school cooperation of those responsible for EE

Mandatory criteria from area B – Advanced Level:
– Teamwork of teachers
– Advanced training on the topic of EE
– Working with entrepreneurs

Mandatory criteria from area C – Basic Level:
– school mission statement
– website
– Documentation of entrepreneurship activities and successes
– Social media presence
– Involvement of student representatives

Mandatory criteria from area C – Advanced Level:
– Involvement of parents
– Public Relations
– Networking with graduates of the school

A complete list with detailed description of the criteria, their objectives and evidence is available from the responsible bodies (www.eesi-impulszentrum.at).

Authored by: Mario Vötsch, University College of Teacher Education Tyrol

Today, we present you a new book from our partner institution – MCI Management Center Innsbruck edited by Andreas Altmann, Bernd Ebersberger, Claudia Mössenlechner and Desiree Wieser: “The Disruptive Power of Online Education. Challenges, Opportunities, Responses.

About the book

The higher education sector is being disrupted through the effect that technological innovations have on the educational market. As digital and mobile technologies are developing further, higher education institutions must embrace these developments to meet the needs of their learners and to not become irrelevant. In higher education, disruptive effects are mainly visible on a program/product level, with an increasing number of programs including some element of online education.
Disruptive effects also become evident on a pedagogical level, where student engagement, collaboration and social learning, gamification and serious games, competency-based learning, teacher training, and overcoming geosocial divides are high on the agenda. This book considers the effect of online elements and their design on university business models and internationalization, course design, massive open online courses (MOOCs), and the scalability of online programs. It also explores how higher education institutions across the globe respond and react to the challenges and opportunities evolving in online education.

Click here to find out more about the book, check its content, download sample chapter and purchase it.

Image credit: Emerald Publishing