Training

Implementing the Community Lisbon Programme (2006)

In 2006, the European Commission recommended every Member State to raise awareness among the largest number of people about entrepreneurship learning, especially among young people from primary school to university.

For Europe, willing to protect its social model, it is important to encourage young Europeans to become tomorrow’s entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship is a key competence to develop from the earliest age and education can be decisive.

It is the ability to turn ideas into actions: “an individual’s ability to make ideas concrete, to innovate, to take initiatives and risks, to organise and manage projects in order to achieve objectives.”

In 2006, six recommendations (based on best practices observed in Europe) were expressed so that education take a more active part in the creation of a more entrepreneurial culture in Europe:

• A consistent framework: national and regional authorities should set up a cooperation between different services to draw up a strategy with clear objectives for all levels of education.
• Support to schools: schools should benefit from practical support and incentive measures to integrate entrepreneurship in their curricula, this with the help of a set of instruments (diffusion of teaching materials, pilot project funding, best practice dissemination, promotion of partnership with companies, support to organisations specialised in the achievement of entrepreneurship projects with schools, etc.).
• Support to teachers: teachers receiving initial and continuing training as well as practical experience would be essential.
• Stimulating entrepreneurship in higher education: entrepreneurship training should be integrated in several subjects, including in the context of scientific and technical studies.
• Participation of external and entrepreneurial stakeholders: entrepreneurship training should be the object of a close cooperation between education institution and the local community, including enterprises.
• Practical experiences: learning through practical experience (students creating and managing mini-companies) is one of the most effective way to stimulate entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial competences.

In French-speaking Belgium, for instance, the European recommendations are translated into the Declaration of Community Policy 2009-2014. It mentions that entrepreneurship needs to become a strategic priority of education.

Entrepreneurship “must be understood as the ability to tart a project, this project could be part of an economic, social or cultural context”. It must be encouraged at all levels of education.

Concretely, the government declaration foresaw that “every student will participate in an entrepreneurship awareness activity during the second and third level of secondary school…”, and also to “integrate in every vocational school project a component aiming to develop innovation, creation and entrepreneurship abilities”.

Currently, the concept has taken a larger meaning making reference to “transversal skills”, as it is underlined in “Esprit d’entreprendre, es-tu là ?” published in 2012 in the education magazine “PROF”.

At all levels of education should be implemented educational methods that develop entrepreneurial abilities: creativity, confidence, perseverance, sense of responsibilities, team spirit. In brief, competences that go beyond the economic and commercial sectors, that student will be able to apply in a professional context and in all aspects of their life as citizens.

Online Resources

• Implementing the Community Lisbon Programme: Fostering entrepreneurial mindsets through education and learningCommunication from the Commission of 13th of February 2006. [COM(2006) 33 final - Not published in the Official Journal].
• Implementing the Community Lisbon Programme: Promoting entrepreneurship in schools and universities The European Commission wishes to focus on learning about entrepreneurship * from primary school through to university. It is therefore presenting recommendations based on best practice observed in Europe, so that education can have a more active role in creating a more entrepreneurial culture in Europe.
• Declaration of Community Policy 2009-2014It mentions that entrepreneurship needs to become a strategic priority of education [in French].
• Esprit d’entreprendre es-tu là?C. Moreau, article in “PROF” magazine n°16, December 2012, Ministère de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles [in French].