Education and Training for Enterprise: Problems of Classification, Evaluation, Policy and Research

Abstract

JAMES CURRAN is Midland Bank Professor of Small Business Studies and head of the Small Business Research Unit at Kingston Polytechnic, England, and John Stanworth is Professor and director of the Future of Work Research Group at the London Management Centre, Polytechnic of Central London, England. Small business education and training has grown rapidly in importance as 'enterprise' has assumed a key role in the main political initiatives towards economic restructuring in Britain and elsewhere. This development has, however, been essentially ad hoc and there is now a need to identify more clearly the major forms of enterprise and training education, their target populations and their resource effectiveness. 'Entrepreneurial education' or 'training for entrepreneurship' are widely used phrases, often intended to take on a generic meaning. However, most small business educational activities have little to do with promoting 'entrepreneurship' in any strict sense. To clarify the analysis and disaggregate the main forms of education and training activities linked to the small business, the authors have distinguished four distinct types-entrepreneurial education for small business and self-employment, continuing small business education, and small business awareness education. They conclude that in research terms there is a considerable need for a great deal of further study in all four dimensions for each of the forms of education. In policy terms the most resource effective form currently is probably education for small business ownership but they say that the greatest need is probably for more continuing small business education although this may be expensive in resource terms.