Conference "Competencies and Capabilities in Education" Oradea 2009 EDUCAŢIA ANTREPRENORIALĂ - EDUCAŢIE PENTRU VIITOR

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1 EDUCAŢIA ANTREPRENORIALĂ - EDUCAŢIE PENTRU VIITOR ENTREPRENEURIAL EDUCATION - EDUCATION FOR THE FUTURE Andrada Pandelea 1 Abstract The development of the entrepreneurial spirit among young people is a necessity for the period we cross. Young people are well trained, but do not know how to apply this knowledge in practice, knowing that the claims of employers are increasing. Entrepreneurial education plays an important role in shaping entrepreneurial personality, in order to be autonomous, active, involved, and responsible, as well as having an innovative spirit from a very young age. In this article I wanted to introduce the importance of supporting entrepreneurial education in schools and the role we play in shaping and developing students' personality. I made an analysis on how these programs are encouraged in schools from our country, support measures that were taken and how the teacher manages to influence the shaping of entrepreneurial personality in specific ways and directions. Education is a complex social activity that is performed by an unending chain of actions performed in a conscious, systematic and organized way, every time a subject (individual or collective) acts upon an object (individually or collectively) in order to transform it in an active and creative personality, that corresponds to the present and future historical and social conditions and also to its biopsychic individual potential. The main purpose of education is the conscious, systematic and organized training and development of the individual s personality, in order to integrate him, through efficient methods, in the social life. Education has as finality, the shaping of human personality through: - The appropriation of scientific knowledge, values of national and universal culture; - shaping intellectual capacity, availability of emotional and practical skills through assimilation of humanist, scientific, technical and aesthetic knowledge; - Assimilation of intellectual work techniques that are necessary for training and self training during the entire life; - Education in the spirit of respecting the human s rights and fundamental freedoms, dignity and tolerance, free exchange of opinions; - Cultivation of sensitivity to human problems, to the civic-moral values, respect for nature and environment - Harmonious development of the individual through physical education, health education and sports practice; - Professionalizing the young generation to carry out useful activities, that produce material and spiritual goods. Education involves the shaping of autonomous, active, involved, responsible, creative entrepreneurial personality - through the following specific ways and directions: the shaping of vocational skills necessary to generate business opportunities in order to socially capitalize the opportunities. The promotion of an education focused on practical activities relevant to life outside school. The product of this type of education is called entrepreneurship. 1 Universitatea Alexandru Ioan Cuza Iasi 358

2 The adjunction of the teachers profile for the purposes of capitalization of the educational opportunities and generate, consequently, school and professional development projects. The product of this type of education is called entrepreneurial education. The entrepreneurial education should start at a very young age. In order to develop a successful business, the personal qualities that are absolutely necessary, are not sufficient. They must be doubled by a specialty education started as early as possible. Among young people, who are currently at school, there could be identified at the skills chapter: skills in marketing and self promotion, mobility, permeability to information and new learning ability, ambition, and access to information, and in the defects chapter: lack of realism, poor market positioning relative to the true values, shallowness, they are not guided by a dream because they are not taught dream, lack of confidence in their own forces. All these make young people unprepared for crossing the present crisis period. The society offers a lot of information, but young people do not know how to manage it. Few of them are performant, adaptable, have a sense of reality and qualities of leaders, entrepreneurs, professionals. The crisis must be seen as a challenge, not as a problem that came from outside. Young people do not seek the appropriate information and always have the tendency to wait for someone else who can find solutions to their problems, most of them having little knowledge about what is actually happening around them and with the economy. The Entrepreneurial Education discipline taught in schools is only a theoretical discipline, a more like enterprises organization course training than an entrepreneurial and business skills development course. In high schools with economic profile, there is an optional program with applicative content, The Exercise Company and at the university level, certain academic centers have introduced entrepreneurial courses, but these contain very few Romanian case studies, business simulators and applications to develop not only procedures for making business plans, development of innovative and practical spirit, realism. 1. The functions of the teacher in school In schools, the teacher carries out the following functions: a) organizer of the teaching process, b) educator c) partner of education d) a member of the teaching body. The teacher is not just a transmitter of information, which resumes himself to giving indications to pupils on how and what to learn, but a coach who, through analytical questions, stimulating students' thinking, creates prerequisites for them, by finding answers by themselves, to reach a better understanding of the problems. The awakening of the students' interest, the motivation stimulation is a result of the instructive process leadership. To educate, together with training, means for the teacher: the use of methods that shape the students attention for independent work, to develop social virtues, to strengthen the inclusion of students in their value, helping them to find their own identity. To educate means developing the activity under the sign of moral categories, advising students to take a critical distance from their own performances and skills, developing the ability to establish positive contacts and to critically analyze their own prejudices. Before transmitting cognitive values, the teacher transmits moral values and assists the students in appropriating them, highlighting the importance of feelings such as satisfaction of success, cooperation, respect for the achievements, etc.. The entrepreneur teacher is that teacher that approaches the educational system and all the activities from the perspective of innovation, action, cooperation and a paradigm of entrepreneurial education. It is that person who gets involved in the school life and answers to the school and community life challenges by creating and carrying out the implementation of educational projects. 359

3 School must become an incubator for carrying out the entrepreneurial personality shaping profile. This is one of the most important challenges that schools face today and that is why the teacher is the main element for creating and spreading the culture of entrepreneurship type, he is one that can encourage students to find the best instruments to provide a career and to excel in the skills development that would bring them success, to discover that they can be their own leaders. Thus, any school discipline can be constituted in a source for the development of entrepreneurial skills. Students should be involved in real learning experiences, where they can take risks, coordinate results and learn from the results they obtain. "The educational and training systems in Europe do not do enough to encourage its young people to start their own businesses," said European Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Multilingualism, Ján Figel, the first European Summit on Entrepreneurial Education, organized by Junior Achievement's Young Enterprise Europe (JA - YE Europe). In September 2006, 150 teachers from 28 European countries met in Brussels to discuss the need of entrepreneurial development. JA - YE studies show that this type of education plays an important role in shaping attitudes, skills and culture. The sooner the entrepreneurial spirit and innovative occurs, the more increase the chances that young people take into consideration the possibility of becoming entrepreneurs. It is very important to support the initiation of entrepreneurial programs starting with the elementary school until the university level, emphasizing on secondary education, where the message should be spread "You can create your own business." Involving students in activities of mini companies - the chance for young people to start their own business is 4 times bigger. The European Commission wants to support the following measures: - Inclusion of the Entrepreneurship topic in the national curriculum; - Financial or any other kind of stimulation of schools, including financing the pilot projects which stimulate entrepreneurship; - Awareness of the importance to stimulate the entrepreneurial spirit in children; - Favoring links between schools and business environment; - Offering courses on the entrepreneurial theme for teachers and providing informative materials. Nowadays, Junior Achievement Romania is the only organization which, together with the Ministry of Education, has developed programs for economic and entrepreneurial education starting from the primary cycle. "All the Junior Achievement programs - Young Enterprise, starting from the first grade to last year of college are learning by doing (learning by example in practice) As support they have: guidelines for teachers, practical activities for students, volunteer consultants from the business community to come to class regularly. An easy method to learn, different from the traditional one, not only for Romania, as through the used resources, and through the class development method Popp explains. A weak point is the difficulty to implement these programs because of the human resources, low interest and lack of time for activities that require many hours of research and team work more than individual work. The level of the entrepreneurial education in Romania is low, the connection between research, knowledge, education and implementation of knowledge (industry) is very weak. An entrepreneurship course is effective if 1% of the students business ideas turn into successful businesses. But the business universities from Romania do not yet have a business tracking system started by students or graduates thus, "it restrains a proper assessment of the course efficiency". 360

4 As it could be seen from Picture 1, the first item, Primary Programs (age 5-12) is: : ; : ; - Middle Grade Programs (age 13-15) is: : ; : ; - Secondary Programs(16-18) is: : ; : ; - Post-Secondary Programs (19+) is: : 12050; : 21500; - Classes served by Programs is: : 15123; : 20000; - Schools with Programs is: : 2436; : Picture 1 The level of the implementation JA programs in Romania Most recently ended fiscal year Projected for year Primary Programs (age 5-12) Middle Grade Programs (age 13-15) Secondary Programs(16-18) Post-Secondary Programs (19+) Classes served by Programs 361

5 As a conclusion, we can appreciate that Entrepreneurial education is present in more schools in Romania. These programs provide educational information and practical knowledge about the functioning of market economy mechanisms, encourage entrepreneurship among young competitive, quality and responsibility. From year to year gives close attention to this type of education as to realize the importance of education in achieving career and the impact that has on the economy of the young s future. References: Becker, G. S. (1994) - Human behavior, an economic approach, All Publishing House, Bucharest; Heyne, P. (1991) - Economic way of thinking, Didactic and Pedagogic Publishing House, Bucharest; Stoica, A. (2003) - Assessing school progress. From theory to practice, Humanitas Educational Publishing House, Bucharest; Cucoş C. (2000) - General Education, Polirom Publishing House, Iasi; *** *** *** 362