Incorporating Student‐Centred Learning in Innovation and Entrepreneurship Education

Abstract

Innovation and entrepreneurship are vital for economic growth, as was already asserted by Schumpeter in 1934. In a recent survey carried out by the Ministry of Economic Affairs (Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, 2006) a picture emerges of The Netherlands as lagging behind when it comes to starting a company, whereby start‐ups of students coming directly from an educational institution score even worse (Sijde et al., 2006). The average age of start‐ups in The Netherlands is around 38 years (Thijssen, 2004). Against this background, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Economic Affairs defined the stimulation of entrepreneurship and innovation as a policy item in 2005. Entrepreneurship and innovation are closely linked, according to Schumpeter, who regarded the entrepreneur as the driver for innovation. Through innovation, a process of creative destruction is set in, which alters the institutional context and context of companies in several ways. In The Netherlands, ambitions to improve entrepreneurial behaviour amongst students and the starting up of new companies are high. During the Lisbon meeting held in 2003, The Netherlands voiced the ambition to be among the top 10 knowledge economies in 2010. Students of universities of applied sciences and to a lesser extent of scientific universities are the agents of change when it comes to making the choice to become an entrepreneur or innovation manager in a company. With the growing importance of knowledge as an economic asset (Prusak, 1997) students are becoming knowledge workers, as well as learning a certain profession. And educational organisations are becoming knowledge institutions involved in knowledge creation, sharing and transfer. This has important consequences for the pedagogical climate at universities and the methods used to teach students entrepreneurship and innovation. Whilst teaching methods based on an instruction‐based approach of learning prevail, at The Hague University of Professional Education, we have introduced a learner‐centred approach, in which the student is the driver of his learning process. In this article we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of such an approach and the pitfalls and potentials when it comes to stimulating innovative entrepreneurial behaviour amongst students. Between 2005 and today, nearly 150 students participated in this programme.