How ready our future graduates are, depends on how higher educational institutions best prepare them for the challenges of the future workplace, and the community at large. With an ever-increasing number of new graduates entering the workforce, it becomes almost impossible for every graduate to find employment unless they are equipped with entrepreneurial skills that will elevate their capacity to become selfemployed. With this in mind, the Entrepreneurship Accelerator Project (EAP), a tailor-made capstone module was designed for final year students in a private university, with the aim of producing work-ready graduates with entrepreneurial skills. This study will assess how effective the EAP programme is, in developing students’ entrepreneurial skills and in preparing them to seize business opportunities, take risks, think strategically, and acquire other future work-ready skills set. The study is based on Schumpeter’s entrepreneurial theory of innovation, Kolb’s Experiential Theor...

Galloway, L., Brown, W., Anderson, M. & Wilson, L. (2006). Investigating the Potentials of Entrepreneurship Education. International Journal of Management Education, 5(1), 57-65. Abstract According to governments, the modern economy requires people with transferable enterprise skills, which can be applied either entrepreneurially or intrapreneurially. Within the context of a globally competitive knowledge economy, enterprise skills and the practice of entrepreneurship (in the form of business start-up) are particularly important amongst those with high skills. As a result, much has been done to increase the opportunities for entrepreneurship and enterprise to be studied within universities. The current paper draws on theories of planned behaviour which indicate that intent can be a robust predictor of outcome. As such, the study investigates the extent to which the inclusion of entrepreneurship education is likely to make a difference to the number and quality of future graduate businesses. Results reveal that while it is likely that entrepreneurship education will have an effect on the number of graduate businesses in the future, this is more likely to be a long-term outcome rather than a short-term one. There is also suggestion of there being differences in the number and timing of future graduate business based on the degree subject of student. Results based on investigation into the potential effect of entrepreneurship education on the quality of future ventures were disappointing, however, and implications for pedagogy include that focus on start-up is insufficient in terms of encouraging entrepreneurial development skills and intentions in future graduate firms.

The development of entrepreneurial competences among graduates is considered an important resource in many countries, not only because through these competences graduates can better contribute to the economic well-being of their communities by creating enterprises but also because through them, they can better direct their career development in any sector. The most successful entrepreneurship education programmes combine the development of technical and transversal skills using specific methodologies. In this paper, we evaluate in a comparative way the extent to which university-based entrepreneurship education programmes in Italy, India and Nigeria use methods that develop participants' ability to move from ideation to the implementation of something new. The literature review shows some differences between the programmes and methods developed in the three countries but also some shared strategies in adopting lines of development aimed at increasing students' entrepreneuria...

Increasingly university programmes are introducing a range of experiential learning based programmes to support students to develop their entrepreneurial competencies during their time at university. This paper describes how the University of Galway is utilising the Entrepreneurial Potential and Innovation Competences Tool (EPIC) to track the changes in student self-reported competencies having participated in one of its flagship student entrepreneurial programmes. Based in Ideaslab, the university’s Human Centre Design Studio, the approach used is experiential, design centric and informed by D.School, Stanford. Initial findings from the EPIC surveys completed by 23 students are reported. These data are part of a university wide initiative and further data will be collected over the next three semesters. In so doing, we hope to add to the body of knowledge concerning the utility of this approach to measuring the changes in entrepreneurial competencies following participating in ...

Entrepreneurship education (EE) plays an essential role in developing the competencies of modern knowledge-based societies and economies, the so-called 21st-century competencies (OECD 2018) [...]

Purpose Experiential approaches have become increasingly common in entrepreneurship education in response to calls for different approaches to the traditional didactic process driven approach. Experiential approaches offer the potential to develop the skills and mind-set that are required in entrepreneurship. Research has highlighted the critical importance of educator pedagogical competence in the delivery and quality of teaching and learning in further and higher education. Nevertheless, educator narratives and practices are often based on foundations that suggest a lack in the depth of knowledge and understanding of the underlying pedagogic learning theories and practice. This paper brings educational theory and pedagogic practice together in a three-stage framework of the experiential entrepreneurship learning process to support entrepreneurship educators within further and higher education. Design/Methodology/Approach This paper reviews and brings together the seminal educational theories and philosophies of constructivism, objectivism, Kolb's (1984) theory of experiential learning, Schön's (1983) reflection-inaction and Mezirow's (1997) theory of transformative learning, to develop a framework which underpins the experiential entrepreneurship learning process. Findings This paper develops a three-stage framework which informs the roles of the educator and the learner in experiential entrepreneurship education within further and higher education, based on educational theories and philosophies that inform the learning process.

Current research on the implementation of the entrepreneurship programs in higher education commonly focuses on the distinction between business and non-business programs. The special focus of this pilot study is Higher Education Institutions (HEI) offering non-business programs. The quantitative section of the larger study of strategic piloting, implemented by SEECEL in cooperation with national partners, focused on the higher education institution (HEI) as unit of change to test the impact of the entrepreneurial learning SEECEL ELKCA instrument on a student’s entrepreneurship-related learning outcomes. The pilot study recommendations are related to the validity of the developed questionnaire and further implementation of entrepreneurial learning in an HEI. The internal consistency of the entrepreneurship-related learning outcomes scale indicates the high validity of the questionnaire. It is possible to conclude that further efforts should be made to incorporate entrepreneurial competences in teacher training programs and also to develop further entrepreneurship modules designed by SEECEL in non-teacher training HEIs to improve entrepreneurial competence in relation to the higher levels of learning in the cognitive domain and the affective domain. Additional data analysis revealed non-teacher training and teacher training HEIs that experienced significant changes in several entrepreneurial competence domains. These institutions should serve as examples of good practice and mentors. The current societal circumstances and the requirements to develop entrepreneurial universities demand additional efforts from higher education institutions and universities in implementing entrepreneurship education in current university programs.