Young Entrepreneurial Teachers Initiative Erasmus Project

Project Title

Young Entrepreneurial Teachers Initiative

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills; Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development)

Project Summary

The need for acquiring entrepreneurial competences is not limited to learners seeking careers as commercial entrepreneurs, but rather extends to all students in “all walks of life” as EU policy makers have repeatedly emphasized [1,2,3]. Consequently, the importance of entrepreneurship education (EE) for teaching professionals has been prioritised in recent years [4,5]. Despite a recognised need for entrepreneurial school teachers on the policy side, attention given to EE in initial teacher education (ITE) programmes remains rather elusive [6,7]. Ultimately, the underprovision of a profound entrepreneurial knowledge and competence base within ITE also causes a sub-optimal exploitation of entrepreneurial teaching potentials at school stage [7].

Our project “Young Entrepreneurial Teachers Initiative” (YETI) has been designed to address this deficit. It focuses on ITE senior-stage students who are gathering their first practical experiences (ISCED level 3-4) either through school internships (“practicum”) or within the in-service “induction” phase. It is our main objective to empower a 1st cohort of ITE students to teach more entrepreneurially once they start their careers at schools. To do so, we pursue a co-creational approach for the implementation of the following sequence of inter-connected activities (A), objectives (O) and intellectual outputs (IO):

I. Understand teacher education pathways of ITE partners (O1):
YETI develops and applies a methodology to coherently map the educational pathway aspiring teachers undergo when transitioning from ITE to autonomous teaching at school (A1). Results (methodology + 3 country cases) will be captured in the YETI Teacher Pathway Report (IO1).

II. Comprehend what ITE students understand of EE (O2):
YETI reaches out to ~1.500 ITE students to unveil (via survey) their terminological and conceptual understanding of EE (A2). This will prevent conceptual mismatches between YETI resources and student mindsets. All materials and results will be compiled in the YETI Conceptual Screening Report (IO2).

III. Raise awareness for the educational benefits of EE (as understood by the European Entrepreneurship Competence Framework – EntreComp) and capture entrepreneurial competence portfolio of ITE students (O3):
YETI develops a Personal Entrepreneurial Canvas Model (PECM) and puts it to practice to profile entrepreneurial competences of 45+ selected ITE students (A3). Apart from these results, partners will provide a guide and webinar that introduces EE as much as the PECM itself (IO3).

IV. Help teacher candidates to translate EE knowledge from simulative university contexts (ITE programme) into actual classroom environments (O4):
YETI identifies and reflects typical challenges for teacher aspirants with regards to EE knowledge transfer from ITE to actual class-room settings. Main challenges and recommendations on how to overcome them will be compiled in the YETI EE School Transfer Strategy Handbook (IO4).

V. Create digital one-stop hub for EE material (tools, activity ideas, lesson plans, etc.) to inspire entrepreneurial teaching interventions (O5):
YETI select relevant EE contributions (based on EntreComp) from around the globe that prepare teaching interventions and compile them in a well-structured Wikipedia database (A5). This will become the YETI Entrepreneurial Education Hub (EEH – IO5). As a last preparatory step for actual EE teaching interventions, YETI will acquaint a 1st cohort of aspiring teacher (15+) with the EEH content.

VI. Showcase YETI EE interventions to inspire other European ITE stakeholder (O6):
The partners will motivate and gather successful 15+ examples of entrepreneurial learning interventions as part of regular school teaching of ITE (senior) students, who are part of the 1st YETI cohort (A6). The best performers will enter the YETI Interventions Showcase Collection (IO6).

VII. Increase entrepreneurial learning interventions at school through teachers that act as “catalyst for change” in the wider education system with regards to spreading the benefits of EE (long-term objective & benefit).

Methodologically, the project design of YETI is based on a backward reflection and planning process as implied by the theory of change [8]. The project will be realised within a 3-year long, interdisciplinary co-creation (4 HEI, 1 SME, 1 NGO, 1 European Network) of EE and ITE experts and is expected to unfold impact across 7 EU Countries involving 150+ ITE students and 60+ school pupils.

[1] EC 2014 (p.7): Entrepreneurship Education. A guide for Educators.
[2]. EC 2013: Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan.
[3]. EC, OECD 2015: Entrepreneurship in Education.
[4] Eurydice 2016 (p.95): Entrepreneurship Education at School on Europe.
[5] EC 2016: Teaching professionals: skills opportunities and challenges.
[6] see [4] (p.14, 94 ff).
[7] EC 2019 (p. 92 ff): Education and Training Monitor 2019.
[8] Rogers 2014: Theory of Change. UNICEF Methodological Briefs.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 387372 Eur

Project Coordinator

VYSOKÁ ŠKOLA BÁŇSKÁ – TECHNICKÁ UNIVERZITA OSTRAVA & Country: CZ

Project Partners

• UNIVERSITY INDUSTRY INNOVATION NETWORK BV
• UNIVATIONS GMBH
• SZEGEDI TUDOMANYEGYETEM
• AKADEMIA TECHNICZNO-HUMANISTYCZNA W BIELSKU-BIALEJ
• BANTANI EDUCATION
• Pädagogische Hochschule Tirol