Presentation on the MESH guide to Entrepreneurship Education given at EU Money Week, Brussels 2016

1. Wealth Taking or
Wealth Making?:
What Does The Evidence Tell Us About Effective
Practice In Financial Capability & Entrepreneurship
Education?
M I K E B L A M I R ES ,
D I R E C T O R , R E S E A R C H I N I T I A T I V E S F O R P A R T I C I P A T I O N A N D P R O G R E S S W I T H I N L E A R N I N G E N V I R O N M E N T S
E . E . E D I T O R M E S H H T T P : / / W W W . M E S H G U I D E S . O R G /
FINANCIAL EDUCATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP FORUM

2. http://www.meshguides.org/guides/node/436

3. CONF - Conference Proceedings: A conference may involve peer
reviewed academic papers or might be for invited professionals and/or
academics.
SURV - Survey: This may be a review of documents and data
from a number of sources as well as interview or questionnaire data.
INSP - The report of the inspection of individual or a number
of services or institutions based informed by inspection criteria.
EXPOP - Expert Opinion. The collated viewpoints of selected
professionals and other experts.
SR - Systematic Review – A structured review that evaluates
evidence according to established inclusion criteria for quality and
relevance in order to address a question.
Review Headings
Title
Authors:
Date:
Aim(s):
Key Findings:
Focus of Study
Authority and Credibility:
Implications & Comments:
Bibliographic Information

4. Entrepreneurship
…refers to an individual's ability to turn ideas into action. It
includes creativity, sense of initiative, innovation and risk-
taking, as well as the ability to plan and manage projects in
order to achieve objectives.
The entrepreneurship competence includes therefore
transversal skills and attitudes as well as more specialised
knowledge and business skills.
Source: http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sme/promoting-
entrepreneurship/education-training-entrepreneurship/index_en.htm

5. Entrepreneurship education
..It should develop both general competences, e.g. self-confidence, adaptability, risk-
assessment, creativity, and specific business skills and knowledge, It should no
longer be just an extra-curricular activity, but instead be embedded in the curriculum
across all educational levels/types.
To move entrepreneurship education from being an extra-curricular 'add-on' to an
integral part of the curriculum involves:
• changes in teaching methods: greater use of experiential learning and a new
coach/moderator role for teachers which helps students to become more
independent and to take the initiative in their education;
• changes in the education context, which takes students out of the classroom into
the local community and real businesses, and which establishes less hierarchical
relationships within schools;
Source: Mini Companies in Secondary Education: Final Report of the Expert Group.
P III

6. Financial Capability
…is concerned with the personal management of money. Developing an understanding
of earning, spending and saving in order to distinguish and prioritise between needs and
wants thus making informed decisions as a consumer.
Source: http://www.pfeg.org/planning-teaching/introduction-what-financial-
education
What is meant by Financial Education?
“Financial education is a programme of study that aims to equip young people with the
knowledge, skills, and confidence to manage their money well. High quality teaching
ensures that learners grow to understand their attitude to risk, and become aware of
their own behaviour and emotions when making financial decisions. It is also achieved
through applied learning, for example as a context for teaching mathematics, where
students grasp mathematical concepts through real-life scenarios”
Source: http://www.pfeg.org/policy-campaigning/personal-finance-education-what-it
Enterprise Education:
“Economics, business and enterprise education is about equipping children and young
people with the knowledge, skills and understanding to help them make sense of the
complex and dynamic economic, business and financial environment in which they live. It
should help them leave school well-informed and well-prepared to function as
consumers, employees and potential employers”.
Source: Economics, Business and Enterprise Education June 2011,
No 100086

7. System Wide:
Framework for policy development
This political backing of EE by establishing a common EU framework integrated into existing EU
monitoring, the launch of national and regional strategies, ensuring coherent funding and
recognising career structures.
Source: The Oslo Agenda
…Entrepreneurship education needed to become more commonly treated as a key competence
across subjects rather than a business related and or separate subject. Individual teachers were
seen as central key but the evidence shows that they also need external support.
Develop national strategies based on a share vision of the teacher as facilitator and coach. Make
E.E. a mandatory part of the curriculum with minimum standards in quality frameworks and
labelled recognition for innovative practice. Put in place assessment measures that are
sympathetic to the advocated teaching approaches for E.E.
Ensure that there are incentives for entrepreneurial teachers including rewards, tool kits,
resource centres and recognised centres of expertise.
Develop communication channels between all stakeholders and establish communities of
entrepreneurial teachers.
Source: The Budapest Agenda Item 2: Entrepreneurship Education:
Enabling Teachers as a Critical Success Factor

8. System Wide:
For public authorities:
These recommendations include:
• Developing an overall strategy for entrepreneurship education in schools. In this
strategy, student company programmes should be highlighted as one important
option within the established curricula.
• Setting up regular cooperation between different ministries, business associations,
non-governmental organisations, educational institutions, municipalities, with the
objective of further promoting activities based on the student company
methodology.
• Cooperating in particular with those organisations (such as NGOs) that are widely
disseminating these programmes, and involve them in national plans for
entrepreneurship education.
• Endorse, and actively promote student company activities to schools, heads of
school and teachers.
• Ensure that legal and administrative barriers to the setting up and implementation
of mini-companies are removed;
Source: Best Procedure Project: Mini-Companies in Secondary Education

9. System Wide: At Regional and Community Level:
These programmes can represent an important instrument within regional
development policies.
….especially in less developed or more isolated regions, activities may have positive
effects in increasing the number of school leavers to remain in the area by building
direct links with the local community.
Source: Best Procedure Project: Mini-Companies in Secondary Education
Building links and opening education to the outside world
This includes enhancing the contribution of intermediary organisations dedicated to
the dissemination of entrepreneurship activities within schools and universities, and
to building links between education and the business world, as part of their corporate
social responsibility and supporting research to improve the educational contribution
of businesses within schools.
This would include the development of pedagogical abilities of entrepreneurs and
business partners.
Centres of Educational Expertise in E.E. should be recognised.
Source: Oslo Agenda

10. Whole School Issues
When primary schools taught and reinforced concepts across different curriculum areas
pupils gained appropriate levels of understanding about money, including earning,
spending and saving and the distinction between wants and needs.
Source Economics, Business and Enterprise Education June 2011, No 100086
… improved integration of E.E. programmes into the curriculum and their inclusion in
Primary schools, encouraging curricular reform through piloting, comparison and sharing
of practice based pedagogies and sustainable funding for activity in this area.
Establishing university centres and research to access impact using common frameworks
derived from successful programmes.
Source: Oslo Agenda
Entrepreneurial schools
…have a dedicated and committed school management which supports entrepreneurship
education for all students based on a forward looking ethos willing to embrace change and
a vision of how entrepreneurship education fits into the broader curriculum and
development plan. Transversal, creative and entrepreneurial skills are nurtured by the
regular use of activity based learning and student centred methods
in teaching.
Source: Entrepreneurship Education - A Guide for Educators

11. Assessment: 1 of 2
Regular evaluation of the activities are carried out including student feedback using
concrete learning outcomes that are also defined and assessed as part of formal exams.
Positive student feedback is seen as a driver for the development of entrepreneurial
learning.
Source: Entrepreneurship Education - A Guide for Educators
Student assessment methods are also needed which evaluate them against appropriate
criteria related more to the essential features of entrepreneurship such as learning from
mistakes, risk taking, innovation and creativity, rather than knowledge acquisition. If
such methods don’t change, the job of the teacher as facilitator will be impossible to
realise fully in practice
Source: Entrepreneurship Education: Enabling Teachers as a Critical Success Factor

12. Assessment: 2 of 2
Entrepreneurial learning outcomes most often referred to in primary education are those
linked to attitudes, specifically entrepreneurial attitudes of ‘taking the initiative and risk
taking, critical thinking, creativity and problem solving’. At this level of education, no
country defines learning outcomes linked to practical entrepreneurial skills despite the
widespread support for experiential learning.
In secondary schools, the most widely applied category of learning outcomes for
entrepreneurship education is for attitudes ‘taking the initiative and risk taking, critical
thinking, creativity and problem solving’. The number of countries promoting learning
outcomes linked to entrepreneurial knowledge increases with the level of education.
Source: Entrepreneurship Education at School in Europe: National Strategies, Curricula and
Learning Outcomes

13. Course Management
..Entrepreneurship education has tended not to be treated systematically in the
curriculum. Instead, it is typically an extra-curricular activity, added at the margins of
mainstream education, reliant on the enthusiasm of individual teachers and schools.
Source: Towards Greater Cooperation and Coherence in Entrepreneurship Education Report and Evaluation of the Pilot Action
High Level Reflection Panels on Entrepreneurship Education
Create development plans in schools that communicate a vision of E.E. and have clear
objectives and action plans that fully involve the potential contribution of students,
alumni, businesses and the local community. Support the development of E.E. with
leadership roles including the appointment of a coordinator for E.E.
The E.U, should foster E.E. developments in schools whilst school to school level co-
operation should be facilitated.
Source: Budapest Agenda Item 4: Entrepreneurship Education: Enabling Teachers as a Critical Success Factor.

14. Classroom Pedagogy 1 of 2
In primary schools, the activities and tasks to be performed are simpler, and programmes
have a shorter duration than found in secondary schools (for instance 2-3 months, or just
the time needed to develop a specific project).
The methodology will be more oriented towards learning by playing, through
experimentation and games. Emphasis will be rather on attitudes (team working,
initiative etc.) than on business skills.
Activities already existing inside the school will be often used (like organising a bazaar,
raising money for a school trip, etc.), or the student company may be organised around a
certain event (like selling products at a school or community Fair).
Source: Best Procedure Project: Mini-Companies

15. Classroom Pedagogy 2 of 2
Key features of an ‘Effective Entrepreneurship Education Environment’
• Quality exposure to enterprising individuals;
• An understanding amongst the students of the motivation and objectives behind the
exercises that they are taking part in, e.g. to develop competences related to creativity
and initiative, and the skills needed to take risks, as well as to run businesses effectively
• Experiential and hands-on learning to enable students to have fun, retain the outcomes
of the learning experience and gain a sense of accomplishment that builds their self-
confidence;
• Tasks which give learners responsibility and ownership of activities in order to promote
the emergence and implementation of innovative approaches to problem solving; and
• Teachers with 'know-how' of enterprise principles, of how to communicate and
enthuse people about the central issues and of how to support students' self-directed
learning
Source: Towards Greater Cooperation and Coherence in Entrepreneurship Education Report and Evaluation of the Pilot Action
High Level Reflection Panels on Entrepreneurship Education Section 4.4.4

16. Teacher Education & Professional Development
For Teacher Educators:
….a need to develop an environment that enables innovation in teacher education by
overcoming negative notions of ‘entrepreneurship’ and recognising social
entrepreneurship.
This is supported by concrete and tangibly defined learning outcomes for entrepreneurial
teaching with developed and quality assured assessment methods for entrepreneurship
education pedagogy informed by student feedback.
Source: Entrepreneurship Education - A Guide for Educators
Entrepreneurial teacher training programmes should utilise entrepreneurial methods to
address the teachers’ own potential for entrepreneurial capacity, not as an isolated skill,
but as a concept that requires key competences such as creativity, technological
awareness and project management.
Training programmes should show how, in every curriculum, there are starting points for
entrepreneurial teaching and learning that can build on existing entrepreneurial activities
of teachers, demonstrating how their existing methods already fit to the concept.
.
Source: Entrepreneurship Education - A Guide for Educators

17. Research
Most studies focus upon a case study that promotes a particular method rather than
comparing or evaluating processes and methods within a holistic framework. . P.20
Further, research needs to be more evaluative, longitudinal and contextual to examine the
link between entrepreneurship education and graduate entrepreneurship. p24
Research should also consider the broader societal impact of entrepreneurial education
rather than focus upon narrow instrumental policy goals so that the justification for E.E. is
not just based upon economic utility. p24
Source: Entrepreneurship Education: A Systematic Review of the Evidence

19. Models

20. Traversing the Transversals
Creativity
Positive
Behaviour
Citizenship
Arts &
Culture
Inclusion &
Diversity
ICT
Other
Traditional
Subjects
Entrepreneurship
Education
Teachers need to be supported to be
entrepreneurial about their subject.
Vocational
Agenda

21. A traditional model of Entrepreneurship Education can focus upon what has been termed a long time
ago as the ‘Myth of the Hero Innovator’ (Diogenes & Philimore, 1975) but without an infrastructure
built on society, economics, technology, science that rely equally in turn on good will. A simple
model of Entrepreneurship will lionise or celebrate the identification of potential sources of profit
and the personal accumulation of wealth as a reward for locating an opportunity and taking a
financial and perhaps personal risk.
It is then hoped that some of the wealth accumulated will then trickle down and benefit new and
smaller businesses as well as communities.
Such a model has been questioned in that the ‘Hero Innovator’ may be reluctant to share their
expertise or new found wealth and ‘stick around’ in their original community. The classic critiques of
the disparity. The Hero Entrepreneur model may ring hollow and upon analysis and is unlikely to
rattle if you shake it but it still holds sway as individuals who identify themselves as such cast their
beneficence to those they consider to be the deserving poor.
The wealth that has been created may not ‘trickle down’ to those seen as ‘bit players’ in relation to
the one identified as the ‘Hero of the Enterprise’. It has been suggested that instead of the
precarious ‘trickle down’ notion alternative models of Entrepreneurship can be implemented
focused on opportunities for wealth creation that are more collaborative and permeable to
community needs, enriching the local infrastructure so that there are, in turn more opportunities for
this form of Entrepreneurship.
Coda

22. UNESCO (2008) UNESCO Inter-Regional Seminar On Promoting Entrepreneurship Education In
Secondary Schools ED/BAS/STV/2008/RP/1 Bangkok, Thailand UNESCO Paris
Url accessed 11/03/2015
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0016/001600/160087E.pdf
This report presents the conclusions from a UNESCO inter-regional seminar and it provides some
potential useful findings that illustrate the difficulties for developing countries that provide a
counterpoint to European perspectives. These findings may guide a European approach that is
more responsive to the needs of immigrants and refugees and possibly North African countries :
Take into consideration different cultures, customs, experiences and expectations of various
target audiences in relation to established key success factors
Bringing awareness of the benefits of Entrepreneurial Education to the full attention of INGOs
and donors
Identifying and coordinating sources for implementation taking into consideration the
challenges of the existing curriculum to establish viable starting points
Ensuring that autonomy, flexibility and commitment is built in to course organisation and
teaching approaches.
The importance of impact studies and networking
Respondingtothenewcircumstances

23. Credits
Graphics used for illustration purposes have been repurposed from the EU document Entrepreneurship: A guide for
educators
The document was produced by the MESHguide Entrepreneurship Education editorial group.
Mike Blamires, Research Initiatives for Participation and Progress in Learning Environments, UK
Andre Mostert, University of East London, UK
Michael Ochieng, Masomo Kwa Ajira (MAKA) - (Learning for Self-Employment) Project at CO-OPERAID, Niarobi Kenya
Babajide Oluwase, Focus, Lagos, Nigeria,
Sarah Younie, De Montfort University, Leicester, U.K.
Contact:
Comments regarding the content and structure of this guide are very welcome. Please direct them to the MESH Editor for
Entrepreneurship Education : Mike.Blamires@ripplesinlearning.com
www.ripplesinlearning.eu
Citation:
Blamires, M., Mostert, A., Ochieng,M., Oluwase, B. & Younie, S. (2016) Mesh Guide for Entrepreneurship Education:
Iteration One, Leicester, www.MeshGuides.org
http://www.meshguides.org/guides/node/436