Social, Environmental, and Cultural Entrepreneurship Education for Primary and Secondary Education (Start Date 2024: Oct 21)

Societies worldwide have been changing in the most rapid pace ever in human history. Technology, communication, environment and the planet itself are transforming at a high-speed rate. The challenge of educating the next generation is among the many challenges this creates. Thus, educational systems worldwide are trying to find solutions towards a successful structure and planning, in order to enhance their development and improvement, so as people can live in peaceful and creative world.
In this context, faculties worldwide suggest that entrepreneurial skills can be integrated in teaching and learning, being able to provide motivating and value-added experience to learning results. Students, especially the less able, should be exposed to alternative activities in order to be prepared with the tools for discovering their talents and the means of putting them to work to achieve success.
However, according to several reports such as GEM and Eurydice, there is a gap in teacher’s training regarding Entrepreneurship Education. Putting the idea of entrepreneurial learning into practice has revealed significant challenges together with the stated positive effects. The challenges include lack of time and resources, teachers’ resistance of implementing innovations, impeding educational structures, assessment difficulties and lack of definitional clarity.
As a result, this course will bring together different definitions of entrepreneurship, the content, structure and methodology of different entrepreneurial programmes, the challenges of entrepreneurial learning and the opportunities it creates.
As the main role of education is to create ethical and democratic adults, teachers will be trained in an innovative approach of entrepreneurship∙ the Social. Social Entrepreneurship is being defined as the enrichment of entrepreneurship in a way that creates social impact and social value. According to the European Commission social entrepreneurship is about addressing severe social challenges and meeting social needs in an innovative way, while serving the general interest and common good for the benefit of the community (www.oecd.org). By experiencing Social Entrepreneurship students develop their entrepreneurial skills along with their social responsibility, social and moral values. They will also practice and improve skills like critical and ethical thinking and action, decision making, team building, creativity, communication, presentation, problem solving, self-respect and self-control. Social entrepreneurship also includes the aspects of environmental entrepreneurship and cultural entrepreneurship, which promote the development of a sustainable environmental thinking and the culture and cultural heritage respectively.