FOREWORD
Staring from 2006 the European Union proposed 8 key competences for lifelong learning, one of which is a ‘sense of initiative and entrepreneurship’.
In 2016, the European Commission has proposed ‘A New Skills Agenda for Europe: Working together to strengthen human capital, employability and competitiveness(1) to address the skills challenges that Europe is currently facing. The aim is that everyone should have the key set of competences needed for personal development, social inclusion, active citizenship and employment. These competences include literacy, numeracy, science and foreign languages, as well as more transversal skills such as digital competence, entrepreneurship competence, critical thinking, problem solving or learning to learn. In 2017 was published “The Entrepreneurship Competence Framework”(2), also known as EntreComp, a tool to improve the entrepreneurial capacity of European citizens and organisations. EntreComp was developed by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission on behalf of the Directorate General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (DG EMPL). The Council Recommendation of 22 May 2018 on “Key competences for lifelong learning”(3) establish “Entrepreneurship competence refers to the capacity to act upon opportunities and ideas, and to transform them into values for others. It is founded upon creativity, critical thinking and problem solving, taking initiative and perseverance and the ability to work collaboratively in order to plan and manage projects that are of cultural, social or financial value” |
ENTREPRENEURSHIP AS A COMPETENCE
In the context of You(th) Stand UP! project entrepreneurship is understood as a transversal key competence applicable by individuals and groups, including existing organisations, across all spheres of life. It is defined as follows:
“Entrepreneurship is when you act upon opportunities and ideas and transform them into value for others. The value that is created can be financial, cultural, or social (FFE-YE, 2012)”(4). This definition focuses on value creation, no matter what type of value or context. It covers value creation in any domain and possible value chain. It refers to value creation in the private, public and third sectors and in any hybrid combination of the three. It thus embraces different types of entrepreneurship, including intrapreneurship, social entrepreneurship, green entrepreneurship and digital entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship as a competence applies to all spheres of life. It enables citizens to nurture their personal development, to actively contribute to social development, to enter the job market as employee or as self-employed, and to start-up or scale-up ventures which may have a cultural, social or commercial motive. Entrepreneurial skills are founded on creativity which includes imagination, strategic thinking and problem-solving, and critical and constructive reflection within evolving creative processes and innovation. An entrepreneurial attitude is characterised by a sense of initiative and agency, pro-activity, being forward-looking, courage and perseverance in achieving objectives. It includes a desire to motivate others and value their ideas, empathy and taking care of people and the world, and accepting responsibility taking ethical approaches throughout the process. |
4) Impact of Entrepreneurship Education in Denmark - 2012 (pdf) |
ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION AND ENTREPRENEURIAL LEARNING OF YOUNG PEOPLE
Looking across Europe, it is evident that during the last decade there has been increasing policy focus on providing citizens — in particular young citizens — with learning opportunities that support their acquisition of entrepreneurial competences. This policy focus has intensified since the 2008-2009 financial crisis. Entrepreneurial learning may take place in many different settings, i.e. in the formal education system, in non-formal learning outside the education system, for example in the workplace, or, indeed, in youth work. Still, a closer inspection reveals that almost no countries have in place a broad strategic framework for the advancement of entrepreneurial learning regardless of where the learning takes place(5). Based on the country research for the study “Taking the future into their own hands - Youth work and entrepreneurial learning”, entrepreneurial learning takes place in most youth work activities, but most often in an implicit fashion. When youth workers and representatives from youth work organisations are presented with a short version of the description of entrepreneurial competences from the European Key Competence Framework (European Parliament and Council, 2006), or from the EntreComp framework (Bacigalupo, Kampylis, Punie, & Van den Brande, 2016), they acknowledge that young people who participate in youth work activities as a rule gain entrepreneurial competences. However, very few youth organisations see it as an explicit objective to deliver those competences. Entrepreneurial learning is seen as a kind of by-product or spin-off. In fact, sometimes there even appears to be a conflict between youth work and entrepreneurship. In some parts of the world, integrating entrepreneurship explicitly in youth work is seen as an instrumentalisation of the field (Pantea, Diroescu, & Podlasek- Ziegler, Young People, Entrepreneurship & Non-Formal Learning: A Work in Progress, 2014).
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THE ROLE OF YOUTH WORK ORGANISATIONS IN PROVIDING ENTREPRENEURIAL LEARNING
Without a doubt, the financial crisis, followed by the significant increase in youth unemployment and the number and share of NEETs in the EU has been one of the main drivers for changing the position of youth work in the entrepreneurship education spectrum. In 2015, 7 years after the breakout of the crisis, more than 6.6 million young people were neither in employment nor in education or training in the EU (European Commission, 2017). With a significant share of the young people in the EU left outside the labour market and the education and training systems, youth work activities became a platform where young people could participate in meaningful activities and, at the same time, gain competencies relevant to the labour market or becoming active citizens.
The understanding of entrepreneurship and of what constitutes entrepreneurial learning continues to be a barrier in this regard. Even though 10 years have passed since the broad understanding of entrepreneurship as a key competence was presented in the European Key Competence Framework, the interpretation of entrepreneurship on the ground often continues to focus on business-related competences. The main explanation for not including entrepreneurial learning as an integrated and explicit part of youth work is probably that there is little tradition in the youth work sector for being oriented towards the labour market. In several Member States, youth work is rooted in a historical tradition that emphasises the role of youth work as helping young people to become active participants in society and democracy. Consequently, youth organisations are afraid of having their work assessed only under the aspect of employability and being pressured to adjust their activities solely to preparing young people for the labour market. Some representatives from the youth sector call for more realism with respect to the ability of entrepreneurial learning to serve as a ‘magic bullet’ providing solutions to a wide array of social and economic problems and challenges. Against that background, some of them question the relevance of integrating entrepreneurial learning explicitly into youth work activities (6). |
PROJECT PRESENTATION
One of the largest prospective sources of new entrepreneurs is youth(7). For this reason, the enhancement of entrepreneurial talents amongst young people is widely supported. Numerous courses and programs are offered to young people.
Important is contribution that entrepreneurship makes to sustainable development by creating jobs and driving economic growth and innovation, improving social conditions and addressing environmental challenges. These project are intended to intensify the attention of youth and of youth workers towards entrepreneurship, improve entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and to improve entrepreneurial skills. As part of the 2030 Agenda, the Sustainable Development Goal 8, entitled Decent Work and Economic Growth, includes targets pertaining to young people and entrepreneurship. Specially, social entrepreneurship can be defined as a form of entrepreneurship which predominantly focuses on social benefits rather than solely financial ones, and which seeks to address societal, cultural or environmental issues, often in an innovative manner. Young people’s desire to “do good” socially while they “do well” economically is translating into a rise in youth social entrepreneurship in several regions of the world. Social enterprises (8), with their hybrid goal of being financially effective and socially transformative, are particularly apt at generating locally-driven responses to a wide array of issues hindering collective social progress and economic development, especially for vulnerable groups. You(th) Stand Up! Is a project for innovation cooperation focused on the creation of innovative methods for training and evaluation of non-formal skills. You(th) Stand Up! It aims to increase Entrepreneurial Competence and spirit of youth workers and their self efficacy in order to bring more young people to a greater level of social participation as an opportunity box (network, relationships, work). As other members of the social and solidarity economy, youth workers as “youth social enterprises” engage diverse stakeholders in a common search for solutions to issues in a manner that sustainably and equitably leverages social capital and assets. The partnership sees in synergy organizations operating in four European countries: Patatrac (IT) , STUDIO ERRESSE (IT), Amesci International Movement (BE) , CYCLISIS (GR) and SYNTHESIS (CY). Quality and innovation of the methodologies used will sediment the skills of the Youth Workers by strengthening them and constituting a heritage for the young people who will be promoters of future actions. |
"You(th) Stand Up!" is a Youth Key Activity 2 project for Innovation, funded by the Erasmus+ Proj. Reference: 2017-2-IT03-KA205-011264
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