Entrepreneurship Education: Innovations and Best Practices

Abstract

Entrepreneurship education has become a priority for policy-makers especially in developing countries. Such interventions in the education system are expected to create a culture of entrepreneurship in the society and thereby bring economic benefits through the enterprising behaviour of individuals resulting in better performance of existing organizations as well as creation of new ventures. While the process appears to be simple and straightforward, the experiences have often belied the expectations. The fact that it is rather difficult to assess the long-term impact of entrepreneurship education adds to the confusion and ambiguities. Educators therefore have been tinkering with various aspects of entrepreneurship education and training in the hope of arriving at the best design. Obviously, this has led to many innovations in the curriculum, pedagogy, target groups and institutions involved in entrepreneurship education. The present paper attempts to document these innovations and best practices under a ‘WHAT-HOW-WHO-WHERE’ framework to capture the four domains of activities involved. Based on a comprehensive review of the literature, we have developed a fairly comprehensive picture of what is happening in the field and proposed a theoretical model highlighting the dual role of entrepreneurship education, namely developing enterprising individuals in the society and providing knowledge and skills required for enterprise creation.