The Future of Education

Entrepreneurship education is considered nowadays an important tool to address the challenges of the 21st Century. Developing the entrepreneurial skills of citizens became a main priority for EU policies regarding the  economic development in the knowledge society. It is more and more obvious that entrepreneurial skills, knowledge and attitudes can be learned and are of a great importance toward EU strategic aims and values.
The European Commission defines entrepreneurship as the capacity to act upon opportunities and ideas to create value for others. The value that is created can be financial, cultural, or social. Therefore, it is necessary to revise the curriculum to explicitly include entrepreneurship as an educational objective, to support teachers in incorporating entrepreneurial activities in the curriculum, design new teaching materials, implement projects, partner with businesses on entrepreneurial training of teachers. The European funded project ENtrepreneurial GAmes for Growing Europeans - EN.GA.G.E.(Nr. 2017-1-IT02-KA201-036947) aims to rethink education by fostering the entrepreneurial transversal skills and entrepreneurial culture with the help of digital games and by involving the educational communities of the partner countries in order to foster the entrepreneurial transversal skills through the use of digital games.

Its main goals are the following:

• the implementation of a widest possible review of the educational games directly or indirectly focused on the entrepreneurial learning.
• the evaluation of their potential in terms of entrepreneurial learning outcomes and to adapt them for the project’s target group, by involving and training the professionals who will be eventually responsible for their exploitation with the pupils and the local community.
•  the co-creation, assessment and review of two digital games with the collaborative participation of all the actors involved.

EN.GA.G.E focused on the implementation of the following project activities:

• Study/research on game-based entrepreneurial learning  methodologies across Europe addressed to educators, trainers of young people (in formal and non-formal educational contexts), as well as to the representatives of the educational systems and community stakeholders.
• Workshops for teachers of Primary and Secondary Schools aimed to foster teachers’ entrepreneurial fluency
• Organization of an International Conference-contest for the award of the most adaptable entrepreneurial game-based practice in primary/Secondary education
• Multiplier events in Partner Countries (Italy, Greece, France, Romania) Design, realization and test of two EN.GA.G.E. digital games for entrepreneurial education (Primary/Secondary schools)

Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Entrecomp, Entrepreneurial education, Digital skills, Digital game-based learning, gamification.

References:
[1] European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2016. Entrepreneurship Education at School in Europe. Eurydice Report. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.
[2] European Commission, 2012. Rethinking Education: Investing in skills for better socio-economic outcomes, Strasbourg.
[3] European Commission, 2014. Promoting entrepreneurship in schools and universities.