Enterprise education: pre-service further education teachers' impressions and aspirations

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the attitudes and impressions of pre-service Further Education teachers towards enterprise education. It also looks at the potential impact on their future teaching practices and aspirations. This study builds on the literature in this area by bringing a teacher education focus and by providing views from the underserved further education sector.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative research approach was used to evaluate pre-service further education teachers' understanding of and attitudes towards, enterprise education. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 15 students in their final year of an initial teacher education degree.FindingsFindings emerged through constant comparative analysis of interview transcripts. These findings indicate that exposure to enterprise education greatly increased understanding of its importance and relevance, while also encouraging pre-service further education teachers to recognise the benefits of incorporating enterprise education into their classrooms of the future.Originality/valueWhile there is an array of literature on entrepreneurship and enterprise education outside of business contents, very few studies exist, which examine enterprise education in an initial teacher education context. Fewer still examine enterprise education from the perspective of further education. This study provides a unique qualitative view of pre-service further education teachers' impressions of enterprise education and their aspirations for the future.

Study on the Integration of Vocational School Student Ideology and Enterprise Education

In the new period, in order to solve the employment problem of college students, vocal school actively promotes the work of enterprise education, and pays attention to continuously improving the entrepreneurial ability and innovative ability of college students. Innovation and entrepreneurship are a new development demand for the cultivation of talents' quality under the social environment of the new era, and it also provides an important target orientation for the in-depth innovation of education. Innovation and entrepreneurship are a new development demand for the cultivation of talents' quality under the social environment of the new era, and it also provides an important target orientation for the in-depth innovation of education. Only by guiding college students to establish a correct concept of employment, helping them to find jobs through multiple channels, and stimulating entrepreneurship to drive employment, can we fundamentally alleviate the employment problem. This paper will analyze the connotation of vocal school enterprise education and ideology, and explore the unique points of its educational integration, to explore the effective strategies for the integration of vocal school enterprise education and ideology education from its content and positive role.

Aspiring Minds: ‘A Generation of Entrepreneurs in the Making’

This article examines how corporate, state and donor interests have converged in attempts to craft South Africa’s youngsters into an army of entrepreneurs as the last frontier for creating growth in a post-job world. We investigate the apparatus designed to engineer this entrepreneurial revolution and the actors hoping to seed enterprising aspirations in school-age kids. Our ethnographic findings show that while the ideology of entrepreneurial education enrols kids in anticipation of an entrepreneurial future, it falls short of both its enticing promise and its transformative intentions. As enterprise education fails to deliver on the New South African Dream, we argue, the aspirations it propagates withers, generating disaffection rather than a generation of entrepreneurial subjects faithful to the neoliberal creed of making it on your own.

Constructing an Entrepreneurial Identity: How Enterprise Intentions Among Young People are Motivationally Formed

As enterprise education plays a larger role in schools and young individuals increasingly become the target of entrepreneurial and enterprise policy initiatives, there is a growing need to understand how entrepreneurial intentions can be fostered. This study builds on analyses of interviews with young potential entrepreneurs and their young counterparts, delving more deeply into the identity construction that motivates some individuals, but not others, to develop entrepreneurial identities and enterprise intentions. The findings outline two contrasting routes to identity construction, shedding light on how enterprise intentions are motivationally embedded and providing details on the micro-foundations of identity formation that shape these identities and intentions toward enterprise activity.

Evaluating the impact of social enterprise education on students' enterprising characteristics in the United Arab Emirates

PurposeThis study evaluates the effectiveness of an enterprise education (social innovation and enterprise) learning programme on the enterprising characteristics among interdisciplinary undergraduate enterprise education students from a general (without considering gender) and gender-specific perspective at a higher education institution in the United Arab Emirates.Design/methodology/approachBased on a convenience sampling approach, pre- and post-surveys were distributed among 180 undergraduate students from January to April 2019. An independent-samples t-test was utilised to evaluate the impact of enterprise education on students' learning for three sample classifications, which were (1) general or gender-neutral (no gender consideration), (2) male and (3) female.FindingsThis study found significant improvements in the enterprising characteristics of students as a result of undertaking the learning programme in enterprise education. There was a greater improvement among female students in comparison to male students. However, contrasts in enterprising enhancement trends between female and male students were recognised. While the greatest improvement for male students were identified in their risk-taking characteristics, for female students, the risk-taking characteristic evidenced the least influence. The differences between the enterprising levels in risk-taking, and locus of control, between male and female students, were prominent post completion of the learning programme.Research limitations/implicationsConsidering that a quantitative method of inquiry was adopted to address the dearth of research evaluating the effectiveness of our learning programmes in enterprise education (i.e. social innovation) on students' psychological traits through a gendered lens, qualitative insights could enrich the depth of the research findings. As this study was conducted on a limited number of students at a single university, the results do not claim generalisation to other contexts.Practical implicationsThe outcomes of this research deliver valuable insights about the divergent influences of enterprise learning programmes on male and female students. The implications of the study suggest that policymakers and stakeholders should consider gender diversities when designing an effective and equitable entrepreneurship and enterprise learning programme that fosters and stimulates students' enterprising mindset and confidence for both male and female students. The implications are for academics, educational instructors and policymakers.Originality/valueThis study presents a literature review on the impact of entrepreneurship education by focusing on the key enterprising psychological characteristics and educational systems over the last two decades, and illustrates that most studies in the field of entrepreneurship are based on either general (gender-neutral) or gender-specified investigations. This work provides a comparison between these two perspectives in a relatively underexplored region of the UAE and demonstrates that relying solely on gender-neutral analyses hinders the opportunity to enhance and effectively harness females' entrepreneurial potential.

Blocked by YouTube? Unseen digital intermediaries for social imaginaries in the Asia Pacific

YouTube is one of the most utilised online content sharing sites, enabling commercial enterprise, education opportunities, and facilities for vernacular creativity. Its user engagement demonstrates online community development; alongside its use as a distribution platform to monetise one’s branded self. However, as a subset of Alphabet Incorporated, its access is often restricted by governments of Asian Pacific countries. This research describes how countries that have banned YouTube still have exceptionally strong online communities, bringing into question the sorts of augmentations used by its participants. This article focuses on digital intermediation strategies, specifically the DIY approach of community building through the use of unseen infrastructures. This comparative study of YouTube channels in several Asia Pacific countries highlights the techniques that bypass limiting infrastructures to boost online community activity. The results demonstrate digital intermediation provides unique opportunities for key agents to contribute to strengthening social imaginaries within the Asia Pacific region.

COVID-19 Lessons for Mitigation and Future SME Prospects

Setting up and running a business can be quite risky without the necessary support. This support can emerge from an ecosystem that allows private, public, and social actors to work together in supporting the development of entrepreneurship because entrepreneurs' efforts result in SMEs. African countries struggle with maintaining a sustainable entrepreneurship ecosystem owing to several factors including poor governance systems, dilapidated infrastructure, poor funding systems, and absence of enterprise education. These factors compromise the acclaimed benefits of SMEs, which often experience a short life span. As such, SME performance is considered less than satisfactory. The emergence of COVID-19 has had a further negative impact on this trend. As one can imagine, many businesses today have yet to experience anything close to the upset brought about by the pandemic. There is therefore justification for a concerted interest in how SMEs will bounce back post-COVID-19 in Africa. This chapter focuses on how South African SMEs have fared and their sustainability post COVID-19.