The focus of this chapter is to show the importance of entrepreneurial education for students at all non-university educational levels in order to foster enterprising skills. We also take into account the need to train other groups, such as parents and teachers, and encourage joint training. With this goal in mind, we collected information about specific practical programmes and here we provide a descriptive analysis of them. Ultimately this information should serve to provide an approximate overview of the current situation in our country and to propose future lines of action
TopIntroduction
The term “entrepreneurial initiative” is gaining particular importance, especially when taken into account the younger audience entering the labour domain. More than ever people are aware that organizations find themselves in a turbulent and complex environment, in which many elements are interrelated which, furthermore, are on a constant flux of change, for example, the uncertainty of job stability. Although entrepreneurial initiative is considered important in all areas of society, it is especially important among young people; a group characterized by its creativity, innovation, entrepreneurial and adventurous spirit, lower degree of risk aversion and sensitivity to technological changes, all of which makes them more inclined to embark on these kinds of projects (Alemany et al., 2011). Education contributes greatly to the formation of entrepreneurial culture, utilizing younger people as starting point. In short, society is benefited by thrusting entrepreneurial attitudes and capacities even beyond practical applications to gain new initiatives (Ríos & Hernández, 2007).
Overall, one could say that entrepreneurship is one of the main engines of innovation, competitiveness, and economic and social development (Carree & Thurik, 2003; van Stel et al., 2005; Wennekers & Thurik, 1999; Wennekers et al, 2005, quoted in Alemany, Alvarez, Planellas & Urbano, 2011). In one side of the spectrum, can be found a vision focused on the development of attitudes and skills needed by nascent entrepreneurs to start a business, on the other hand, entrepreneurship is emphasized as a key competence to capacitate and offer the transversal skills needed for a productive and active citizen, employment, entrepreneurship and intraentrepreneurship (European Commission, 2016).
In Spain, research projects, thesis and journal articles published regarding entrepreneurial education and its respective implementation strategies/ initiatives remains scant, although in recent years, a growing interest in expanding the literature has taken lead by the research community (Ordóñez & Bejarano, 2016). In heed of a more complete analysis on how these values are being developed at a scholar context, a plan was devised to collect information on different existing programmes and initiatives, also those being developed not only for students, but also for teachers, parents and business incubators linked to vocational education. To this end, entrepreneurial activity has been analysed in each of Spain’s Autonomous Communities (Appendix 1. Figure 1) for comparative purposes, also, to highlight regions actively promoting the development of entrepreneurial initiative and to observe where it is lacking, so that in the future entrepreneurial education can be of equal quality throughout the country.
The main objective was to update the study Education for Entrepreneurship, published in November 2013, by gathering information about programmes related to entrepreneurship being carried out in non-university education in Spain, especially student programmes. The latter study can be accessed on http://educarparaemprender2014.blogspot.com.es/.
As secondary objectives, in addition to describing entrepreneurship programmes for students, the following topics will be analysed: