The Effect of Early Entrepreneurship Education, Essay Example

Entrepreneurship is defined as “the practice of starting new organizations or revitalizing mature organizations, particularly new businesses generally in response to identified opportunities” (Onohua 20). There is a need for entrepreneurs in today’s society, to help the economy grow, and ideas prosper. However, children in the Western world are not provided with education about entrepreneurship and attitudes that foster creating and materializing ideas. The main focus of the current essay is whether or not entrepreneurship should be taught in school to provide an alternative for 9-5 jobs to young people.

Huber, Sloof and Praag created a study that measured the effect of early entrepreneurship education based on a randomized field experiment. The results of the experiment showed that the education program introduced in early years had an estimated positive impact on entrepreneurial skill development, such as self-efficacy, need for achievement, persistence, pro-activity, and creativity. From the results, it is evident that teaching entrepreneurial skills to students at an early age can have a positive impact on their overall attitude towards learning, academic orientation, and social skills. Therefore, the main question is: if entrepreneurial skills are useful for improving academic and social outcomes of students, why are they not introduced in the curriculum at an early age?

Valerio, Parton, and Robb  created a report reviewing early entrepreneurial education programs around the world. The study sponsored by the World Bank has reviewed the conceptual framework of Entrepreneurial Education and Training programs (EET) and four main outcomes can be achieved through implementing entrepreneurship in the secondary and higher education curricula. The first outcome is the development of an entrepreneurial mindset, involving effectiveness, success-orientation, social and emotional skills. The  second one is entrepreneurial capability development, such as technical and management skills. The third positive outcome is entrepreneurial status, or involvement in entrepreneurial activities and initiatives. Finally, education programs can positively impact entrepreneurial performance, such as better employability and success rate, and overall personal performance.

Reviewing the above published results, it is evident that entrepreneurial programs are not only beneficial for students who would like to start their own business, but they teach some essential skills that are needed in higher education, leadership, and employment, as well. This means that implementing this type of education into high school and college curriculum would deliver multiple positive results.

The main programs reviewed by Valerio et al. focused on meeting with successful entrepreneurs, being involved in charity organization, and practicing leadership at an early age. Instead of providing students with the theory of leadership and entrepreneurship, the education programs should focus on providing them with a new perspective to deal with challenges, become more independent, and dare to take risks for aiming higher. The benefits of entrepreneurial training in developing countries, in particular, have been highlighted by the report, are even greater than programs’ in developed countries. At the same time, the authors suggest that more positive outcomes were achieved by creating education and “training that was more specifically tailored to the needs of the targeted entrepreneurs” (Valerio et al. 116). Program designs that were based on collaboration with local businesses and involved work experience were found to be more successful than those that were exclusively classroom-based. The main benefit of leadership education programs for high school and higher education students was found to be enhanced socio-economic skills. Therefore, it is recommended that governments’ education agencies revise their curriculum and implement entrepreneurship in their citizenship and financial skills-related programs.

Works Cited

Onuoha G.,  Entrepreneurship, AIST International Journal 10, 20-32. 2007. Print.

Rosendahl Huber, Laura, Randolph Sloof, and Mirjam Van Praag. “The effect of early entrepreneurship education: Evidence from a randomized field experiment.” 2012. Print.

Valerio, Alexandria, Brent Parton, and Alicia Robb. Entrepreneurship education and training programs around the world: dimensions for success. World Bank Publications, 2014. Print.