Moving entrepreneurship education forward in Europe

The first pan-European body dedicated to moving entrepreneurship education forward in Europe was officially launched at the beginning of May - 50 entrepreneurship experts and 13 MEP Ambassadors are behind this initiative.

The European Entrepreneurship Education NETwork (EE-HUB) is co-ordinated by a consortium of partners, namely JA Europe (Europe’s largest provider of entrepreneurship education), EUROCHAMBRES (the association of Chambers of Commerce and Industry), SEECEL (South East European Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning), and EUproVET (vocational education specialists). EE-HUB is supported by the European Commission (COSME Programme) and private sector partners CISCO, EY, INTEL, Microsoft and VISA.

Bringing together existing European and national expertise, the EE-HUB seeks to help strengthen co-operation among countries and increase penetration of entrepreneurship education among young people. Moreover, the network emphasizes the necessity of fostering good policy and the implementation of effective strategies at the national and regional level.

During the launch event, hosted by MEP Ambassador Eva Paunova, stakeholders debated the issues surrounding entrepreneurship education in Europe today.

A few outcomes from the discussion:

• Interaction between business people and young people at school demystifies the working world. We need to increase the collaboration and the number and quality of touch points between education and business.
• Our young people need permission to fail and encouragement to take risks.
• Digital skills and entrepreneurship skills are entirely complementary; you cannot separate them.

In his closing remarks, DG Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs Director General Daniel Calleja Crespo called for the audience to spread the word, as “investing in entrepreneurship education is one of the highest return of investments Europe can make”.

European Economic and Social Committee President Henri Malosse called for Europe to reignite its commitment to entrepreneurship and the first step has to be to rethink how we educate our teachers.

“The EE-HUB is a welcome progress in a very important field, a targeted action that can help us build the next generation of entrepreneurs, businessmen, inventors, problem-solvers, leaders. The generation that will move European economies and societies forward. Entrepreneurs and politicians are mutually interrelated. Entrepreneurs "make" and politicians "do". Particularly, we need to DO much in order to enable them to MAKE; to ensure that a real entrepreneurial culture is cultivated in Europe,” said MEP Ambassador Eva Paunova.

Bettine Gola, advisor, EU Affairs EUROCHAMBRES added: “We hope that the EE-HUB can pull the different sides together, getting people to work on entrepreneurship education in the different countries – working together to have an exchange of best practice and inspiration.”

“The real value of the EE-HUB is in maximising the knowledge and know-how of our networks, and it is great to see experts from the SEECEL member states fully integrating and contributing to the hub - The entrepreneurs of tomorrow are in our schools today,” concluded  SEECEL Director Efka Heder.

About EASME 

The Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME) has been set-up by the European Commission to manage on its behalf several EU programmes, including most of COSME, the EU programme for the Competitiveness of Enterprises and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). The COSME programme runs from 2014 to 2020 with a planned budget of €2.3bn. COSME will support SMEs in better access to finance; access to markets; supporting entrepreneurs; and creating more favourable conditions for business creation and growth. Under the Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan COSME supports best practice in entrepreneurship education in the EU, seeks to improve the business environment so entrepreneurs can grow and flourish, and provides programmes for the mentoring of young people, women or senior entrepreneurs. 

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