Abstract:

Nowadays, with the unemployment reaching unprecedented high rates in Portugal, is important to understand the level of entrepreneurial intention among Portuguese students. Giving the present difficulty for youngsters to obtain a first job, is vital that education programs encourage and contribute to entrepreneurship development. The main goal is that, in the future, undertakings can begin and successfully materialize, allowing job creation not only for the promoter but also in the community.

The objective of this paper is to analyze entrepreneurial propensity of secondary high school students, in particular, to compare entrepreneurial intentions between regular and professional/technical education students. In this work, we examine a case study of a Portuguese secondary high school with both kind of curricula, using a questionnaire distributed and filled by a representative sample. Aspects like previous job experiences, business owned by close relatives or personal mentality and attitude were study in order to understand the individual sensitivity of these students to become entrepreneurs and how their education can affect or influence their entrepreneurial intentions.

The results show that there is a low level of entrepreneurial propensity across all students and that there is no statistical difference in the results obtained between regular curricula students when compared with the professional/technical students.

Keywords:

Entrepreneurial propensity, secondary school students.