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CRITERIA for
YOUTH ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION

"Effective youth entrepreneurship education prepares young people to be responsible, enterprising individuals who become entrepreneurs or entrepreneurial thinkers and contribute to economic development and sustainable communities."

Leaders in the field of entrepreneurship education recognized that there are many, many definitions of how entrepreneurship could and should be taught…and much of it depends on the level of education involved. We met many times to discuss our philosophy about the field of entrepreneurship education. Everyone had different ideas to incorporate in the final document.

We did agree on several things, however. First, entrepreneurship education is not a text book course. It depends on students having real experiences that enable them to understand how entrepreneurs think. Entrepreneurs behave differently because they…

  • Risk their own money
  • Organize their own work
  • Have income that varies with market success
  • Make all the final decisions
  • Must find customers to survive
  • Handle diverse activities at the same time

Students can read about entrepreneurs, talk about their experiences, think of business ideas, and develop business skills. But the real test of their education to become entrepreneurs, or entrepreneurial thinkers, rests in the experiences they have with taking a risk, managing the results, and learning from the outcomes.

Jeffrey Timmons of Babson College suggests that :


  • "Entrepreneurship is the ability to create and build something from practically nothing.
  • It is initiating, doing, achieving, and building an enterprise or organization, rather than just watching, analyzing, or describing one.
  • It is the knack for sensing an opportunity where others see chaos, contradiction, and confusion.
  • It is the ability to build a 'founding team' to complement your own skills and talents.
  • It is the know-how to find, marshal and control resources (often owned by others) and to make sure you don't run out of money when you need it most.
  • Finally, it is the willingness to take calculated risks, both personal and financial, and then do everything possible to get the odds in your favor."

We are pleased to present the final "CRITERIA FOR YOUTH ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION" as developed by the "group thinking" of leaders in youth entrepreneurship education in America.

We hope you will share the philosophy of "The Criteria" with all of your networks. To facilitate this we have put it on our web page in a PDF brochure format. CLICK HERE to go to the brochure. You will need to use an Acrobat Reader to open the file Please feel free to link this page and/or the brochure to your web page, or send it to all your networks.

We encourage you to use "The Criteria" as the theme for speeches you are making on entrepreneurship education for youth (and adults as well). Feel free to copy the brochure from our web page and use it as a handout.

And finally, we beg foundations and business resources to support the field of entrepreneurship education more broadly in the future…and that they use "The Criteria" as a basis for evaluating proposals submitted for funding.

Thanks to the following organizations for developing and supporting this unique approach to building the field of entrepreneurship education.
  • Appalachian Regional Commission
  • Association for Enterprise Opportunity
  • Business Professionals of America
  • The Center for Entrepreneurship (NM)
  • The Coleman Foundation
  • The Consortium for Entrepreneurship Education
  • DECA, Inc.
  • EDTEC, Inc.
  • Green Street Works
  • Illinois Institute for Entrepreneurship Education
  • Independent Means
  • The Institute for Entrepreneurship
  • Junior Achievement
  • KY Science and Technology Corporation
  • KidsWay (YoungBiz/EDGE)
  • Marketplace for Kids
  • Making Cents
  • MarkED/Career Paths
  • National Business Association
  • National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE)
  • National Coalition for Empowering Youth Entrepreneurs
  • The Ohio Council on Economic Education
  • REAL Enterprises, Inc./ CFED
  • New York SBDC/Office of Entrepreneurial Education
  • Youth Entrepreneurs of Kansas

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STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

Youth Entrepreneurship Education Organizations
BELIEVE THAT....

  1. Effective youth entrepreneurship education prepares young people to be responsible, enterprising individuals who become entrepreneurs or entrepreneurial thinkers and contribute to economic development and sustainable communities.
  2. True entrepreneurship education provides opportunities for youth to master competencies related to core entrepreneurial knowledge, skills and attitudes including:
    • opportunity recognition
    • idea generation and marshaling resources in the face of risk to pursue opportunities
    • venture creation and operation
    • creativity and critical thinking

  3. While there are many definitions of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs, the following definition by Jeffrey Timmons of Babson College is consistent with our belief that entrepreneurship involves more than just "starting businesses. "

Entrepreneurship is the ability to create and build something from practically nothing. It is initiating, doing, achieving and building an enterprise or organization, rather than just watching, analyzing, or describing one. It is the knack for sensing an opportunity where others see chaos, contradiction and confusion. It is the ability to build a "founding team" to complement your own skills and talents. It is the know-how to find, marshal and control resources (often owned by others) and to make sure you don't run out of money when you need it most. Finally, it is the willingness to take calculated risks, both personal and financial, and then do everything possible to get the odds in your favor.

CRITERIA FOR EFFECTIVE PRACTICE

Based on our experience, effective in-school, after-school or community-based youth entrepreneurship education should...

A. Encourage young people to be entrepreneurs, by:

    1. providing opportunities for youth to start and operate enterprises of an appropriate size and scope, in which they are personally invested in a manner that is significant to them.
    2. reinforcing the concept that successful entrepreneurs take calculated risks based on sound research and relevant information, including economic analysis.
    3. requiring youth to develop a plan for a business that addresses its financial, marketing and operational aspects.
    4. portraying in a realistic way the relationship between risk and reward in the entrepreneurial process as it operates in the free enterprise system, and provide opportunities for young people to understand basic economic concepts such as savings, interest, supply and demand, etc.
    5. generating an understanding of a variety of industries, including, among others, finance, retail, service, and technology.

    B. Encourage responsible enterprising behavior, by:

    1. demonstrating entrepreneurship's place in the for-profit, not-for-profit, and public sectors, as part of school-to-career efforts, community service, and overall economic development strategy.
    2. emphasizing the need to operate enterprises and organizations in a legal, ethical, and socially and environmentally responsible manner.
    3. involving adults from the surrounding community in addition to the primary instructor for the program. These adults may serve as mentors, advisors or role models for youth.
    4. utilizing an action-oriented curriculum that provides age-appropriate experiential learning opportunities for which program leaders/instructors operate as coaches or facilitators. Wherever possible, youth should be responsible for leading their own inquiry-based learning opportunities. Such student-directed activities might include, but are not limited to: planning, creating and operating businesses, field trips, negotiation exercises, and group problem-solving. These approaches may be used along with other teaching methods as appropriate, such as research, fact-based learning, guest speakers and lecture.

    C. Operate accountably, by:

    1. documenting, reflecting upon, and evaluating the program's work in order to practice continuous improvement and measure its results and impact.
    2. seeking to include young people of all backgrounds.
    3. having measurable outcomes that provide value for the participants and community served.
    4. modeling responsible entrepreneurship, by acting ethically as initiators and change agents within the institution or community."

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IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED……We learned this saying as we were growing up, but seldom apply it to the career decision-making process. There are many closing parts to this saying, the original being "TRY, TRY AGAIN". Through entrepreneurship education we believe that "If at first you don't succeed, the experience will help you succeed the next time". Those who believe that life is better without risk will also miss most of the opportunities that come their way.

(For information about the above Criteria for Youth Entrepreneurship Education, or the organizations involved in sponsoring it, contact Cathy Ashmore, 614-486-6538 or by e-mail Cashmore@entre-ed.org.)

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