ENTREPRENEURSHIP TRAINING FOR YOUNG PEOPLE: IMPLICATIONS FROM USER NEEDS ANALYSIS FOR e- LEARNING PLATFORM YEU

Abstract

Long- term unemployment doubled in Europe between 2007 - 14 despite the recent recovery which is slowly translating into more jobs . The effects are felt severely by youth ; t he longer they remain unemployed, the more difficult it is for them to get hired again. As a method t o cope with youth unemployment , the EU ’s Leonardo Programme has been fundi ng projects intended to enhance the entrepreneurship skills of young people. YENTELS ( Young European Entrepreneurs E - Learning Suite) and YEU (Youth Enterprise and Unemployment) projects are examples of such platforms that provide online resources for enterprising. The e - learning platform , including a serious game, dev eloped during YEU project paid close attention to young people who are not employed, in education or training. This study aims to report the process and results of the user needs analysis conducted for the YEU e - learning platform in order to tackle the issue of youth unem ployment by incorporating the viewpoints and needs of multiple stakeholders in the context of entrepreneurship. By means of p rimary and secondary research methods , feedback was obtained from a total of approximately 40 stakeholders and 900 young people across Europe. A range of quantitative and qualitative research findings were identifie d in the areas of youth un employment , entrepreneurship skills and policy making , with genera l observations and experiences also recorded by the project partners from seven countries. The conclusions of the analysis present valuable implications in the areas of European policies , young people’s employment, and business start - up issues . The s tudy also provides recommendations at a general level to improve the employability of young people .