In the United Kingdom, educators and politicians are engaged in a debate on the purpose of higher education: Should it focus on pure academics or emphasize preparing for work?
Lord David Young of Graffham, the British prime minister’s enterprise adviser, recently voiced support for one major facet of “real-world” education: teaching entrepreneurship.
Young told a London entrepreneurship conference that higher education must “instill the very concept of enterprise” into students, according to the Times Higher Education. Graduates will have to be more self-reliant to work in independent firms, he says, and universities should teach them those skills.
Young wants to make teaching entrepreneurship almost a universal requirement in higher education. (Meanwhile in the United States, a chorus of institutions voice strong support for the practice, saying that teaching entrepreneurship does indeed help students.) It teaches them to join a major part of the workforce, this research argues, but it also gets to the other side of the U.K. debate. It can also motivate younger students to devote more time to academic studies.
Practically speaking, entrepreneurship classes do encourage students to try their hand at running their own businesses. A 2011 Babson College study indicates that students who take at least two undergraduate entrepreneurship courses were more likely to start their own businesses. These classes not only teach students how to start their own businesses, but they also help them decide whether they “have the right stuff” to be entrepreneurs or potentially realize their skills are better suited elsewhere, the study’s authors write. But even on an abstract level, all students should simply understand how businesses begin and grow, they add, as part of a general business education.
But others point to more ancillary benefits: The Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship commissioned research on the effects of teaching entrepreneurship to young people before college, and found a host of positive effects: Students in one Harvard Graduate School of Education study, for example, were more interested in attending college, showed stronger aspirations for their future careers, showed more leadership behaviors and even had a higher tendency toward independent reading than peers who didn’t have any entrepreneurial instruction.
The Consortium for Entrepreneurship Education, a group that promotes teaching entrepreneurship, says lessons in owning one’s own business help students at all levels, including increased attendance and higher scores on standardized testing for elementary school students. This education is particularly helpful for students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, the consortium adds: “[These students] can be motivated to learn and achieve once they are provided with the understanding that they can indeed accomplish their goals and dreams through entrepreneurship.”
[cf]skyword_tracking_tag[/cf]
Please Leave A Comment
Related posts:
Business Schools Need to Educate the “Whole Person”
Entrepreneurship Competition at University of Delaware Seeks Potential CEOs
Datapalooza Celebrates Innovation in Higher Education
CIE Entrepreneurship Program Designed To Help Start Ups
Study: Higher Education Leads to Lower Unemployment Rates and Higher Earning Potential
No Comment