Abstract:

We are living in an age where the pace of digital disruption continues to accelerate and its “creative destruction” is transforming entire industries. There is an urgency amongst all nations to foster innovative behavior that is critical to their long-term viability. The European Union, in recognition of this hard trend, drafted the “New Skills Agenda for Europe” in June of 2016 to ensure that its citizens have access to relevant training, skills, and support. The Entrepreneurship Competence Framework or “EntreComp” is a key component of this agenda and was designed to boost the entrepreneurial mindset of European citizens. The big challenge for the E.U. and all nations, however, is how to move beyond the creation of frameworks and legislation in favor of implementing Entrepreneurship programs in a meaningful and comprehensive way (Entrepreneurship in Education 2015).

The European Commission in its Entrepreneurship Action Plan (2004) made it clear that learning Entrepreneurship should begin in high school, yet the realization of this plan has been frustratingly slow. Why? One of the greatest impediments to teaching high school Entrepreneurship is that its definitions vary widely (Shepherd, 2015). While EntreComp does help to create common ground for Entrepreneurship in education within the E.U., it is still confusing and complicated for high school teachers that do not have an entrepreneurial background. We have launched the True Entrepreneurs Program (TEP) in Hungary in English to facilitate collaboration and competition amongst high schools and to create a digital platform that empowers local high school teachers to teach Entrepreneurship based on understandable methods developed by their peers.

TEP’s research study currently involves three Hungarian high schools and focuses on measuring the impact of Entrepreneurship education on problem-solving abilities, a skill in high demand in the global job market (Anderson & Anderson 1995). Students participate in numerous, group-based, problem-solving challenges and then individually assessed during the academic year. A key part of our program has been to continuously expose students to visiting business professionals, company visits, and real use cases. So far, we have witnessed a strong correlation between participation in high school Entrepreneurship and the development of problem-solving skills.

Teaching Entrepreneurship at the high school level enables students to enhance their problem-solving skills, opportunity recognition, and innovative behavior. Universities stand to benefit greatly from an influx of students who are already experienced entrepreneurs and hungry for even bigger challenges. Students who learn Entrepreneurship are by no means bound to becoming an entrepreneur as its supported skills are in big demand all over the world in nearly every industry. It is time for academic institutions around the world to properly support Entrepreneurship as a core discipline in all high schools in order to prepare students for the jobs of tomorrow.

Keywords:

Problem-solving ability, Innovative behavior, Opportunity recognition, Entrepreneurship education.