INSPIRING TEACHER IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION

Estonia has chosen entrepreneurship education to be one of the strategic directions to support Estonian economy to get stronger in the long run. Almost every Estonian university is trying to start entrepreneurship study programmes or at least integrate entrepreneurship modules/ subjects into the curricula. The quality of education, also entrepreneurship education, depends on teacher and his characteristics. According to different researches, teacher has considerable impact on learner and his/her development. One mystic characteristic of good teacher is that he or she must be inspiring. Anyway, what is “behind” this term, whether the teacher to be inspiring is important in entrepreneurship education, is not clear or even discussed enough.

The aim of the article is to find out the entrepreneurship students opinion, how they understand the construct “inspiring teacher” and map the factors, which form this construct. The results of the study may help to specify the teachers’ assessment criteria and emphasise necessary aspects in teachers training.

The results show the students’ understanding of “inspiring teacher” is multifaceted, but several characterizers like good performer, professional in his/her field etc were frequently named. The inspiring entrepreneurship teacher descriptive model is presented in the article.