Title: Challenges and opportunities in incorporating entrepreneurial competences into pre-university schools for all

Authors: Andrej Šorgo; Kosta Dolenc; Mateja Ploj Virtič

Addresses: Faculty of Natural Science and Mathematics, University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia; Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia ' Faculty of Education, University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia; Faculty of Natural Science and Mathematics, University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia ' Faculty of Natural Science and Mathematics, University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia

Abstract: While the core ideas about the importance of including entrepreneurship in education are sufficiently elaborated, a problem arises in the day-to-day practice of an individual teacher working in the school. Who is competent enough to teach about entrepreneurship? Teachers or entrepreneurs? The research was conducted online using Google form application on a sample of 165 university students. The aim was to investigate the difference between the groups of pre-service teachers and students of non-pedagogical programs. When we correlated the desire to work in education with the desire to start a business, we found that there was literally no evidence of correlation. However, we can predict that those who possess adequate theoretical knowledge about the entrepreneurial perspective stemming from the interest will not enter the teaching profession and those who choose to enter the teaching profession do not possess such knowledge. The results lead us to conclude that in order to teach entrepreneurship competences to all students, a completely separate compulsory course should be created, taught by pedagogically qualified entrepreneurs.

Keywords: entrepreneurship in education; entrepreneurial competences; pre-service teachers; non-pedagogical students.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMIE.2022.119680

International Journal of Management in Education, 2022 Vol.16 No.1, pp.1 - 19

Received: 17 Sep 2020
Accepted: 02 Mar 2021
Published online: 14 Dec 2021 *

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