UNESCO Education for All: Developing a translational research and knowledge mobilisation strategy for global and local perspectives through MESHGuides (Mapping Education Specialist knowHow).

1. Educating for Entrepreneurial
Mindsets (MESHGuide): A
critical consideration of the
evidence.
What Does The Evidence Tell Us About Effective Practice In
Financial Capability & Entrepreneurship Education?`
MIKE BLAMIRES,
D I R E C T O R , R E S E A R C H I N I T I A T I V E S F O R P A R T I C I P A T I O N A N D P R O G R E S S W I T H I N L E A R N I N G E N V I R O N M E N T S
E . E . E D I T O R M E S H H T T P : / / W W W . M E S H G U I D E S . O R G /
BERA@ LEEDS UNIVERSITY 2016
UNESCO Education for All:
Developing a translational
research and knowledge
mobilisation strategy for
global and local
perspectives through
MESHGuides (Mapping
Education Specialist
knowHow).

3. CONF - Conference Proceedings: A conference may involve peer
reviewed academic papers or might be for invited professionals and/or
academics.
SURV - Survey: This may be a review of documents and data
from a number of sources as well as interview or questionnaire data.
INSP - The report of the inspection of individual or a number
of services or institutions based informed by inspection criteria.
EXPOP - Expert Opinion. The collated viewpoints of selected
professionals and other experts.
SR - Systematic Review – A structured review that evaluates
evidence according to established inclusion criteria for quality and
relevance in order to address a question.
Review Headings
Title
Authors:
Date:
Aim(s):
Key Findings:
Focus of Study
Authority and Credibility:
Implications & Comments:
Bibliographic Information

4. Entrepreneurship
…refers to an individual's ability to turn ideas into action. It
includes creativity, sense of initiative, innovation and risk-
taking, as well as the ability to plan and manage projects in
order to achieve objectives.
The entrepreneurship competence includes therefore
transversal skills and attitudes as well as more specialised
knowledge and business skills.
Source: http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sme/promoting-
entrepreneurship/education-training-entrepreneurship/index_en.htm

5. Entrepreneurship education
..It should develop both general competences, e.g. self-confidence, adaptability, risk-
assessment, creativity, and specific business skills and knowledge, It should no longer be just an
extra-curricular activity, but instead be embedded in the curriculum across all educational
levels/types.
To move entrepreneurship education from being an extra-curricular 'add-on' to an integral part
of the curriculum involves:
• changes in teaching methods: greater use of experiential learning and a new
coach/moderator role for teachers which helps students to become more independent and
to take the initiative in their education;
• changes in the education context, which takes students out of the classroom into the local
community and real businesses, and which establishes less hierarchical relationships within
schools;
Source: Mini Companies in Secondary Education: Final Report of the Expert Group. P III
.. Is thus about life-wide as well as lifelong competence development.
Source: Enabling Teachers as a Critical Success Factor 1.1

6. Financial Capability
…is concerned with the personal management of money. Developing an
understanding of earning, spending and saving in order to distinguish and prioritise
between needs and wants thus making informed decisions as a consumer.
Source: http://www.pfeg.org/planning-teaching/introduction-what-financial-education
What is meant by financial education?
“Financial education is a programme of study that aims to equip young people with
the knowledge, skills, and confidence to manage their money well. High quality
teaching ensures that learners grow to understand their attitude to risk, and
become aware of their own behaviour and emotions when making financial
decisions. It is also achieved through applied learning, for example as a context for
teaching mathematics, where students grasp mathematical concepts through real-
life scenarios”
Source: http://www.pfeg.org/policy-campaigning/personal-finance-education-what-it
Enterprise Education:
“Economics, business and enterprise education is about equipping children and
young people with the knowledge, skills and understanding to help them make
sense of the complex and dynamic economic, business and financial environment
in which they live. It should help them leave school well-informed and well-
prepared to function as consumers, employees and potential employers”.
Source: Economics, Business and Enterprise Education June 2011, No 100086

7. System Wide:
Framework for policy development
This includes political backing through inclusion of EE by establishing a common EU framework
integrated into existing EU monitoring, the launch of national and regional strategies, ensuring
coherent funding and recognising career structures.
Source: The Oslo Agenda
…Entrepreneurship education needed to become more commonly treated as a key competence
across subjects rather than a business related and or separate subject. Individual teachers were
seen as central key but the evidence shows that they also need external support.
Develop national strategies based on a shared vision of the teacher as facilitator and coach.
Make E.E. a mandatory part of the curriculum with minimum standards in quality frameworks
and labelled recognition for innovative practice. Put in place assessment measures that are
sympathetic to the advocated teaching approaches for E.E. Ensure that there are incentives for
entrepreneurial teachers including rewards, tool kits, resource centres and recognised centred
of expertise. Develop communication channels between all stakeholders and establish
communities of entrepreneurial teachers.
Source: The Budapest Agenda Item 2: Entrepreneurship Education: Enabling Teachers as a Critical Success Factor

8. System Wide: For public authorities:
These recommendations include:
• Developing an overall strategy for entrepreneurship education in schools. In this
strategy, student company programmes should be highlighted as one important option
within the established curricula.
• Setting up regular cooperation between different ministries, business associations,
non-governmental organisations, educational institutions, municipalities, with the
objective of further promoting activities based on the student company methodology.
• Cooperating in particular with those organisations (such as NGOs) that are widely
disseminating these programmes, and involve them in national plans for
entrepreneurship education.
• Endorse, and actively promote student company activities to schools, heads of school
and teachers.
• Ensure that legal and administrative barriers to the setting up and implementation
of mini-companies are removed;
Source: Best Procedure Project: Mini-Companies in Secondary Education

9. System Wide: At Regional and Community Level:
These programmes can represent an important instrument within regional development
policies. In fact, especially in less developed or more isolated regions, activities may have
positive effects in increasing the number of school leavers to remain in the area by
building direct links with the local community.
Source: Best Procedure Project: Mini-Companies in Secondary Education
Building links and opening education to the outside world
This includes enhancing the contribution of intermediary organisations dedicated to the
dissemination of entrepreneurship activities within schools and universities, and to
building links between education and the business world, as part of their corporate social
responsibility and supporting research to improve the educational contribution of
businesses within schools. This would include the development of pedagogical abilities of
entrepreneurs and business partners.
Source: Oslo Agenda
Large corporations for example may be willing participants in collaborations with
schools, but though they may offer good experience of the private sector that is not the
same as offering the opportunity to acquire entrepreneurial skills. Careful selection of
partners is therefore required.
p. 31 Source: Entrepreneurship Education: Enabling Teachers as a Critical
Success Factor

10. Whole School Issues
When primary schools taught and reinforced concepts across different curriculum areas
pupils gained appropriate levels of understanding about money, including earning,
spending and saving and the distinction between wants and needs.
Source Economics, Business and Enterprise Education June 2011, No 100086
Support to Educational Establishments
This involves improved integration of E.E. programmes into the curriculum and their
inclusion in Primary schools, encouraging curricular reform through piloting, comparison
and sharing of practice based pedagogies and sustainable funding for activity in this
area. Establishing university centres and research to access impact using common
frameworks derived from successful programmes.
Source: Oslo Agenda
Entrepreneurial schools
…have a dedicated and committed school management which supports entrepreneurship
education for all students based on a forward looking ethos willing to embrace change and
a vision of how entrepreneurship education fits into the broader curriculum and
development plan. Transversal, creative and entrepreneurial skills are nurtured by the
regular use of activity based learning and student centred methods in teaching.
Source: Entrepreneurship Education - A Guide for Educators

11. Assessment: 1 of 2
Regular evaluation of the activities are carried out including student feedback using
concrete learning outcomes that are also defined and assessed as part of formal exams.
Positive student feedback is seen as a driver for the development of entrepreneurial
learning.
Source: Entrepreneurship Education - A Guide for Educators
Student assessment methods are also needed which evaluate them against appropriate
criteria related more to the essential features of entrepreneurship such as learning from
mistakes, risk taking, innovation and creativity, rather than knowledge acquisition. If such
methods don’t change, the job of the teacher as facilitator will be impossible to realise fully
in practice
Source: Entrepreneurship Education: Enabling Teachers as a Critical Success Factor

12. Assessment: 2 of 2
Entrepreneurial learning outcomes most often referred to in primary education are those
linked to attitudes, specifically entrepreneurial attitudes of ‘taking the initiative and risk
taking, critical thinking, creativity and problem solving’. At this level of education, no
country defines learning outcomes linked to practical entrepreneurial skills despite the
widespread support for experiential learning.
In secondary schools, the most widely applied category of learning outcomes for
entrepreneurship education is for attitudes ‘taking the initiative and risk taking, critical
thinking, creativity and problem solving’. The number of countries promoting learning
outcomes linked to entrepreneurial knowledge increases with the level of education.
Source: Entrepreneurship Education at School in Europe: National Strategies, Curricula and Learning Outcomes

13. Course Management
..Entrepreneurship education has tended not to be treated systematically in the
curriculum. Instead, it is typically an extra-curricular activity, added at the margins of
mainstream education, reliant on the enthusiasm of individual teachers and schools.
Source: Towards Greater Cooperation and Coherence in Entrepreneurship Education Report and Evaluation of the Pilot Action
High Level Reflection Panels on Entrepreneurship Education
Create development plans in schools that communicate a vision of E.E. and have clear
objectives action plans that fully involve the potential contribution of students, alumni,
businesses and the local community. Support the development of E.E. with leadership
roles including the appointment of a coordinator for E.E. EU wide initiatives should further
E.E. developments in schools whilst school to school level co-operation should be
facilitated.
Source: Budapest Agenda Item 4: Entrepreneurship Education: Enabling Teachers as a Critical Success Factor.

14. Classroom Pedagogy 1 of 2
In primary schools, the activities and tasks to be performed are simpler, and
programmes have a shorter duration than found in secondary schools (for instance 2-3
months, or just the time needed to develop a specific project). T
The methodology will be more oriented towards learning by playing, through
experimentation and games. Emphasis will be rather on attitudes (team working,
initiative etc.) than on business skills.
Activities already existing inside the school will be often used (like organising a bazaar,
raising money for a school trip, etc.), or the student company may be organised around a
certain event (like selling products at a Christmas Fair).
Source: Best Procedure Project: Mini-Companies

15. Classroom Pedagogy 2 of 2
Key features of an ‘Effective Entrepreneurship Education Environment’
• Quality exposure to enterprising individuals;
• An understanding amongst the students of the motivation and objectives behind the
exercises that they are taking part in, e.g. to develop competences related to creativity
and initiative, and the skills needed to take risks, as well as to run businesses effectively
• Experiential and hands-on learning to enable students to have fun, retain the outcomes
of the learning experience and gain a sense of accomplishment that builds their self-
confidence;
• Tasks which give learners responsibility and ownership of activities in order to
promote the emergence and implementation of innovative approaches to problem
solving; and
• Teachers with 'know-how' of enterprise principles, of how to communicate and
enthuse people about the central issues and of how to support students' self-directed
learning
Source: Towards Greater Cooperation and Coherence in Entrepreneurship Education Report and Evaluation of the Pilot Action
High Level Reflection Panels on Entrepreneurship Education Section 4.4.4

16. Teacher Education & Professional Development: For Teacher Educators:
The report identifies a need to develop an environment that enables innovation in
teacher education by overcoming negative notions of ‘entrepreneurship’ and recognising
social entrepreneurship. This is supported by concrete and tangibly defined learning
outcomes for entrepreneurial teaching with developed and quality assured assessment
methods for entrepreneurship education pedagogy informed by student feedback.
Source: Entrepreneurship Education - A Guide for Educators
Entrepreneurial teacher training programmes should utilise entrepreneurial methods to
address the teachers’ own potential for entrepreneurial capacity, not as an isolated skill,
but as a concept that requires key competences such as creativity, technological
awareness and project management. Training programmes should show how, in every
curriculum, there are starting points for entrepreneurial teaching and learning that can
build on existing entrepreneurial activities of teachers, demonstrating how their existing
methods already fit to the concept.
Courses should focus on practical approaches and include active, participatory methods
that create ownership and are assessed through clearly defined learning outcomes.
Source: Entrepreneurship Education - A Guide for Educators

17. Research
Most studies focus upon a case study that promotes a particular method rather than
comparing or evaluating processes and methods within a holistic framework. . P.20
Further, research needs to be more evaluative, longitudinal and contextual to examine the
link between entrepreneurship education and graduate entrepreneurship. p24
Research should also consider the broader societal impact of entrepreneurial education
rather than focus upon narrow instrumental policy goals so that the justification for E.E. is
not just based upon economic utility. p24
Source: Entrepreneurship Education: A Systematic Review of the Evidence

19. Models

20. Traversing the Transversals
Creativity
ICT
Positive
Behaviour
Diversity
Inclusion
Citizenship
Entrepreneurship

21. A traditional model of Entrepreneurship Education can focus
upon what has been termed a long time ago as the ‘Myth of the
Hero Innovator’ but without an infrastructure built on society,
economics, technology, science that rely equally in turn on good
will.
A simple model of Entrepreneurship will lionise or celebrate the
identification of potential sources of profit and the personal
accumulation of wealth as a reward for locating an opportunity
and taking a financial and perhaps personal risk.
It is then hoped that some of the wealth accumulated will then
trickle down and benefit new and smaller businesses as well as
communities.

22. Wealth Making or Wealth Taking?
UNESCO (2008) Unesco Inter-Regional Seminar On Promoting Entrepreneurship Education
In Secondary Schools ED/BAS/STV/2008/RP/1 Bangkok, Thailand UNESCO Paris
Url accessed 11/03/2015
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0016/001600/160087E.pdf
This report presents the conclusions from a UNESCO inter-regional seminar and it provides some potential useful
findings that illustrate the difficulties for developing countries that provide a counterpoint to European perspectives.
These findings may guide a European approach that is more responsive to the needs of immigrants and refugees and
possibly North African countries :
Take into consideration different cultures, customs, experiences and expectations of various target audiences in relation
to established key success factors
Bringing awareness of the benefits of Entrepreneurial Education to the full attention of INGOs and donors
Identifying and coordinating sources for implementation taking into consideration the challenges of the existing
curriculum to establish viable starting points
Ensuring that autonomy, flexibility and commitment is built in to course organisation and teaching approaches.
The importance of impact studies and networking

23. Traversing the Transversals:
A need for a Repurposing Agenda?
Creativity
ICT
Positive
Behaviour
Diversity
Inclusion
Citizenship
Entrepreneurship
‘Brexoshambles’
New Trade Deals
Imigration & Instability of States
Critiques of Neo Liberalism
Maker Movement & UBI