Abstract:

Education is seen as a transcendental means for social change. The expectative is that who are benefactors of education, become enablers of development. Similarly, entrepreneurship has proven to be a valid means for the development of personal competencies, which also allows alternatives for professional development, thus influencing territorial development.

Entrepreneurial education emerges within the educational approaches, which has as imperative the design of learning environment, which provides learning opportunities for stimulating the entrepreneurial spirit, throughout thought and action (Hannon, 2013).

The benefits of entrepreneurial education are clear, but, for its adequately development, it demands that the University has training processes and curricular structures that allow increasing their entrepreneurial capacity. At the same time, it demands the bases to become what Clark (1998) and Etzkowitz (1990) call an entrepreneurial university, which is considered to be a substantial element for the development of the regions (Alvarado & Rivera 2011).

The contents of this communication are constructing through the analysis of current contributions of the literature regarding entrepreneurial education, as theoretical-conceptual support of the research. Describes how entrepreneurial education can contribute to the socioeconomic development by training people as agents of change, who by acquisition of entrepreneurial competencies are drivers of new models and answers to the environmental challenges. Also, it pronounces about how universities seek to understand how is the best way to integrate entrepreneurship within its educational structure.

Keywords:

Entrepreneurial education, competencies, agents of change, entrepreneurship.