Impact-Driven Entrepreneurship Education for Children

<< Background >>Impact-driven entrepreneurship has a great potential to provide solutions to some of society’s most pressing problems, such as climate change and rising inequalities. To let impact-driven entrepreneurship reach its full potential, it needs to be mainstreamed. In our opinion, this starts with educating children. An essential building block towards youth social entrepreneurship is an evidence-based form of impact-driven entrepreneurship education (EE) for children and young teenagers. However, knowledge about the working principles and success factors of programs in Impact-Driven Entrepreneurship Education for Children (IDEEC) is still limited, and international exchange of lessons learned is lacking. We therefore addressed the following main needs:Needs of teachers:1) Lack of knowledge on what competences need to be addressed and what didactical principles can be used 2) Lack of easy-to-implement tools to build an IDEEC program 3) Lack of tools to (easily) measure impact of IDEEC programsNeeds of policy makers:1) Lack of knowledge on the value of IDEEC programs2) Lack of a structured set of arguments to promote the impact that can be made by implementing IDEEC programs<< Objectives >>The children of today face grand challenges, ranging from the climate crisis to social challenges like increasing inequality. We need to equip our future leaders with knowledge and competences that allow them to find entrepreneurial solutions to grand challenges. The project ‘Impact-Driven Entrepreneurship Education for Children’ (IDEEC) supports teachers in school education, impact-driven entrepreneurship education providers, and educational and economic policy makers to build and support effective programs that empower children aged 9-15 to develop entrepreneurial solutions for environmental and social challenges. In the IDEEC project, we have built a set of tools for impact-driven EE programs in order to address the following main needs:•Bring new entrepreneurship models in schools; increasing attention for social / impact-driven entrepreneurship •Develop social entrepreneurial skills and attitudes of children •Make impact entrepreneurship accessible for every child•Develop skills of teachers that allow them to act as facilitators for empowerment of children in relation to social entrepreneurial skills. •Show policy makers that investing in impact-driven entrepreneurship education leads to multiple forms of value creation<< Implementation >>The IDEEC project has set up a range of activities to provide a baseline and a set of practical building blocks for teachers to apply effective programs that help children develop impact-driven entrepreneurship competences. By showing the potential of such programs, educational and economic policy makers are equipped to build policies to support impact-driven entrepreneurship education. The activities in the IDEEC project were focused on co-creating and testing products, as well as learning and exchanging:1)Building a competence framework and ‘how to teach’ approach to provide a baseline to build an effective impact-driven Entrepreneurship Education (EE) program for children aged 9-15; also training trainers in this approach2)Developing and testing a toolbox with a large set of activities that can be used as practical building blocks for such programs; in co-creation with teachers and students 3)Developing and testing a set of simple impact measurement tools for such programs 4)Through co-creation and exchange, develop a policy brief, aiming to inform educational and economic policy makers of the added value of impact-driven EE programs5)Disseminating all the above<< Results >>The activities in the IDEEC project have led to five main products:1. a competence framework which provide a baseline to build an effective impact-driven Entrepreneurship Education (EE) program for children aged 9-152. an extensive ‘how to teach’ approach, building on four guiding principles (formerly called ‘didiactics guide’)3. a tested and piloted toolbox with a large set of activities that can be used as practical building blocks for such programs (for two age groups and in four languages)4. a tested set of simple impact measurement tools for such programs 5. an overall policy brief, aiming to inform educational and economic policy makers of the added value of impact-driven EE programs; plus a set of policy briefs about the specific country contexts in the consortiumFurther information about results can be found in the appendixes:1. WP1: Minutes of Executive and Full Board meetings2. WP1: Minutes of Advisory Board meetings3. WP1: Quality Assurance reports4. WP2: Competence framework and development document 5. WP3: Activity packs 9-12 and 12-15 (English versions)6. WP3: Overall testing report7. WP4: Impact assessment tools 8. WP4: Policy brief, country reports9. WP5: Dissemination activity reports