Measuring Entrepreneurship Education impact on a national level in Denmark

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Gain Creators / Outcomes

A systematic mapping of the spread of entrepreneurship education will give an overall picture of the state of play of entrepreneurship education nationally and over time.
Extended research on the impact of entrepreneurship education will promote entrepreneurship education by making the results visible to policy makers and teachers/headmasters.

Gains / Needs

Need of growing evidence of entrepreneurship education (increasing amount of data, growing number of schools and years) which will provide a solid basis for policymaking.
A deeper knowledge about impact of different kinds of entrepreneurship education (what works at which levels) can help promote entrepreneurship education to teachers and headmasters, students and parents which will create pressure for policymaking.
Need to follow up and monitor the development of the policies and initiatives undertaken in order to fulfil national goals on the area over time.

Target Group

Policy makers working with national strategies.

Implementation Method

Suggested means :

Website, annual reports, and regular newsletters
Regular meetings with ministries and other stakeholders (educational institutions)

Official “launching meetings” for stakeholders whenever reports/major results are published.

Map the spread and measure the impact of Entrepreneurship Education on a national level in Denmark

A large scale Danish strategy on entrepreneurship education was launched in 2010 by implementing it in curricula on all educational levels of education. The Danish Foundation for Entrepreneurship (FFE) was established as the main national actor on the area, collaborating with a four-ministry partnership. Today FFE functions as the national knowledge centre on the area.

FFE has followed up on the government’s 2010 strategy with a new 5-year strategy (2015-20) for its work. Apart from spreading entrepreneurship education in the Danish education system, new focus areas are: ensuring the quality of entrepreneurship education and focusing on catalysing activities; analysing what happens between finished education and first job or start-up.

Since 2010 FFE has mapped the spread and researched the impact of entrepreneurship education and continues this activity, as it has proven valuable.

Activities

Ensure support from and collaboration with the ministry level.
Set up a collaboration with educational institutions on a continuous basis.
Develop a model for the evaluation of courses and programmes and communicate this to the institutions.
Have research and analysis capacity.

Resources

Research and analysis staff
Financial support
Involvement from government/ministry level

Pain Relievers / Solutions

Regular updates, overviews and reports on the national state-of-play of entrepreneurship education.
Growing evidence from longitudinal studies on the impact of entrepreneurship education on different educational levels.
Ministries’ focus and collaboration on the area helps underline its importance

Pains / Challenges

Lack of knowledge and evidence about entrepreneurship education among policy makers – it is still a new area – makes it difficult to argue for increasing focus and resources spent on the area.

Headmasters lack knowledge about the “general picture” of entrepreneurship education – why do we need it.
Teachers lack knowledge about different entrepreneurship education methods and their effects – how do we do it.
Students and parents lack knowledge about general picture of entrepreneurship education – what’s in it for me

Additional information:

The growing evidence of the positive results of entrepreneurship education (seemingly lower dropout rates + more start-ups and new jobs) is a good argument for policy makers to increase focus on the area. Since its establishment in 2010, FFE’s mapping and research activities been able to show positive results of entrepreneurship education on many parameters: the number of students involved in entrepreneurship education in their education has more than doubled in 5 years (mapping); children get happier about school; more start-up businesses and jobs are being created (research results); deeper knowledge about which educational initiatives work best on which school level and on which kinds of students (research about the impact of different kinds of entrepreneurship education and methods of teaching).

This is an on-going longitudinal study which will yield more results over time. For more information, see FFE’s latest reports:

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