EU Advocacy » Y 2000 Declaration » Education & Training
Millennium Declaration:
Our vision for EDUCATION AND TRAINING
Education provides the foundation for life and is also a lifelong process. However adverse attitudes to risk and adaptability, as well as fear of failure, are anchored in the perceptions of young people preparing for their careers. Successful small business entrepreneurs have often experienced failure thus providing concrete examples of how to accept and manage risk.
All vocations have a unique value and are dependent upon one another, and none should be undervalued.
Education and training in the 21st Century must embrace the following concepts: -
- The teaching of basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic before moving to technical skills.
- Teaching the importance of personal responsibility, ethical value and integrity.
- Developing lateral thinking.
- The recognition of the importance and correctness of the profit motive as a reward for initiative and effort.
- The recognition that life involves choice and the ability to change course.
- Teaching the principles and values of entrepreneurship as a rewarding career option.
Learning from the past
The educational system has for far too long concentrated on creating employees rather than entrepreneurs by providing academic and vocational training and qualifications to meet the requirements of employers in large businesses or public bodies. This creates a mentality of dependence rather than independence. The educational system has also failed to recognise and encourage this independence by downgrading those who lack academic ability.
By only developing and measuring academic abilities, the educational system fails to recognize and encourage many with other abilities and the spirit of enterprise.
Society needs to recognise the reality that success may not be achieved at the first attempt. Social and economic stability can only be ensured by having a large and ever growing number of entrepreneurs. This requires the educational system to foster self-confidence, personal responsibility and individuals with a belief in themselves and their ideas. This will foster the acceptance of those entrepreneurs who innovate and bring change to society.
Key Policy Recommendations for the future
- EU member states should adapt the teaching message to business realities in order to avoid misrepresentation by educators they should be trained to understand entrepreneurship
- Encourage partnerships between schools, vocational training establishment and entrepreneurs without imposing financial burdens on SMEs.
- Launch or spread initiatives such as young enterprise projects at school, based on the development of creative, organizational and entrepreneurial skills in conjunction with experienced entrepreneurs.
- Reinforce the development of the entrepreneurship spirit as one of the key objectives in existing and future education, training and employment programmes and policies (such as Socrates, Leonardo da Vinci, Youth and EU social fund).
- Promote the importance of life long learning and develop and encourage mentoring programmes (and other shared experience initiatives) which are available to all age groups, enabling the spread of all entrepreneurial skills.
Page last updated: 11/01/2007 4:48:59 PM