Entrepreneur XXI - Education for Entrepreneurship - New paradigm?

Abstract

There have been large social and economic changes in the world during the last 30 years. These changes allow 21st century entrepreneurs to act beyond the mere creation of businesses, using new values, not only economic ones, and being able to undertake a social function of change and economic development, more human, more sustainable and more intelligent. Nowadays, the quality of entrepreneur is basically considered an attitude towards life, not a skill, and that is useful and necessary in every field of social life. This trend questions the old promotion methods of entrepreneurship, based on management training and business plans. The “Tree model for the development of entrepreneurial competences” suggests a systemic approach of education for entrepeneurship, based on the qualification of people and their potential, which comprises, in the root, a profile of key behavioural and performance competences, in the trunk, experimental pedagogical procedures and, in the fruits, real results (not simulated or didactic) within group projects, transversal to people context, regardless of age, activity or economic situation.