A Global Summit of Entrepreneurial Educators
25th – 26th June 2014 | Meridian Tower, Swansea
The Purpose
The summit brought together a distinguished group of international experts in entrepreneurial education to engage in high-level discussions and to consider global perspectives that can or have impacted on policy-making. The outcomes inform international best practice in enterprise, entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial teaching, learning and evaluation. Simply put, this summit was designed to kick start and develop an international voice for entrepreneurial educators.
Countries represented include:
Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Egypt, Finland, Iceland, Indonesia, Israel, Macedonia, Nigeria , Russia Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and the United States.
Policy maker contributions also included:
- South East Europe Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (SEECEL - 8 Countries)
- United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
- An expert perspective from the European Commission
- An expert perspective from the Commonwealth
In addition to an international expert from the United Nations, the summit was supported by leaders of key UK organisations who helped the event to evolve by chairing groups and collating the range of thoughts and ideas that emerged.
Simon Brown – Master of Ceremonies
National Centre for Entrepreneurship in Education
Formed with Government support in 2004, NCEE uses its networks, partners and resources to stimulate and encourage a more entrepreneurial education and support sector - to create and to develop the capacities they need for an entrepreneurial future.
Fiorina Mugione
Chief of Entrepreneurship at United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Geneva
Fiorina champions entrepreneurship within the United Nations team. With an aim to develop ‘prosperity for all’, education is at the heart of their mission. Empretec is just one of the many initiatives that Fiorina leads.
Tom Williamson
Director and former Chair of Enterprise Educators UK
For over 12 years EEUK have been building an extensive network of HE level entrepreneurial educators. With over 100 UK Universities represented, EEUK now actively contributes to the enterprise education policy agendas, as well as running workshops and best practice events. In partnership with NCEE, they co-host the International Entrepreneurship Educators’ Conference.
Nigel Culkin
President, Institute of Small Business and Entrepreneurship
ISBE have been researching and developing understanding in entrepreneurship and education for over 30 years. With research-driven doctoral workshops and annual international conferences, they are well placed to inform the enterprise education agenda.
Chief Executive, SFEDI Solutions
SFEDI Solutions is the government recognised UK standards setting body for enterprise and business and enterprise support.
They provide enterprising solutions to the challenges and opportunities faced in understanding and supporting enterprise learning and skills development.
Each country expert brought five key points to the summit, ones that they believed would be critical to future development. Successes, challenges or simply country perspectives that impact on the development of entrepreneurial education, were discussed under the theme of ‘Practice into Policy’.
This was a summit that moved beyond individual country policies; it considered the views of the international education community, noted the issues and captured insights that help to drive forward the entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurial learning agenda worldwide.
‘Our Vision’, was the theme for two enterprising presentations by Craigfelin Primary School and Coleg Sir Gâr. Delegates were delighted to be asked by primary school children to keep to the good work and the Swansea children found a new market for their chocolate enterprise – the USA.
More about this amazingly enterprising school and it activities can be discovered through a visit to its Twitter account.
The infective smiles of enterprising businesses supported by Coleg Sir Gâr spread to the delegates. There was cause for a little (humorous) concern in the closing event when Swansea’s ‘Creative Bubble’ team turned up to find out if ‘these strange’ Enterprising Educators were aliens or merely educators infected with some kind of strange virus. The serious work completed, the educators were challenged to practice what they preached and the event ended in hilarity and fun thanks to this incredible team.
Coleg Sir Gâr enterprise and entrepreneurship
More on Creative Bubble can be found here:
- An EU roundtable on issues of evaluation and assessment
- A UN roundtable to receive direct feedback as to what the policy makers should consider
- A SEECEL (South East Europe Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning) conversation on broadening support and understanding for entrepreneurial education.
- A discussion led by EEUK on developing educator networks beyond regional or national groups.
- A discussion as to how to build the credibility and appreciation of the work that entrepreneurial educators are doing to prepare our young people for the emerging uncertain world that awaits them.
The full findings will be published one all the thoughts and ideas have been collated. However, key points of discussion in the closing stages included:
- Policy makers need to understand the central role that the entrepreneurial educator has when developing entrepreneurial learning strategies; it isn’t simply a case of letting businesses do this, it needs intermediaries who understand both business and the educational environment.
- This is not a matter of just producing more learning resources and online materials; this is a challenging educational environment that requires new educator skills and abilities
- Educator support and training is required to meet these challenges
- Networks of educators can facilitate learning amongst those charged with developing this agenda
- Few subject specialists are required to justify themselves as much as enterprise and entrepreneurship educators, who are under constant scrutiny by policy makers and governments and subject to metrics that may not be meaningful or helpful.
- Academia is well equipped to evaluate knowledge, but its assessment processes are limited in terms of skills and attitudes. This leads to an imbalance in assessment strategies, especially when we consider the evaluation of learner development in terms of creativity and innovation.
There was clear consensus that this event was a useful addition to the Global calendar. UWTSD, IICED and partners are already considering another similar event in an internationally relevant location – more to follow.
