Abstract:

Learning requires consciousness and the capacity to utilize what we know and leads to change both in what and how we know. Enterprise education and the learning process are seen as fundamental to developing the entrepreneurial culture. Teach and learn entrepreneurship includes so different dimensions, e.g. environmental factors, personal relations in potential and established entrepreneurs and their network, development of ones entrepreneurial behavior and personality and of course the learning process itself. We suppose that it is possible, but as Koch (2003) has stated: ”Any reflection on the teach ability and learn ability of entrepreneurial expertise first demands an understanding of the teaching and learning subjects. Here the focus is on subjects who undertake something innovative as intrapreneurs or entrepreneurs in order to generate added value through change.”

Education has long been regarded as one of the primary components of poverty reduction efforts and overall social development. Lifelong education is a key factor for increasing the level of knowledge and competence, but also to improve the quality of life. Many governments are setting specific national education goals, including gender-related targets. Estonian Government of the Republic approved in 2009 the "Development Plan for Estonian Adult Education 2009-2013" witch is a continuation of "Lifelong Learning Strategy 2005-2008". The development plan has three main goals. The first of them is the same as that of the lifelong learning strategy for the years 2005-2008 – the implementation of the development plan enables adults better access both to formal education and non-formal education in order to improve the knowledge of people and the level of education of the population and to increase the percentage of people aged 25-64 participating in lifelong learning to 13.5% by 2013.

The other two goals of the development plan add more qualitative indicators in addition to the measurement of participation rate – to decrease the proportion of people aged 25-64 with general education (general secondary education, basic education or a lower level of education) and those without professional or vocational education to 32% in the population and to create the preconditions for obtaining a one level higher level of education or qualification through high-quality education for as many people as possible.

The aim of this article is to explore how to teach entrepreneurship in lifelong learning process and to explore it in participants’ perspective. Lifelong learning is a socio-personal process as we negotiate our thinking, acting and doing across activities and interactions. In empirical part authors use interviews with persons who are adult and have educated from some entrepreneurship courses. We discuss what constructions are more effective - to learn about, for or through/within entrepreneurship (Hyrsky & Kyrö 2005; Hägg 2010).

Keywords:

Entrepreneurship education, lifelong learning, Estonia.