Youth Education & Entrepreneurship

Europe 2020 focuses strongly on young people, with a headline target of reducing early school-leaving and increasing tertiary attainment. Two other headlines also share a clear youth dimension - to reduce the risk of poverty and to increase the share of the population in employment. Because education is paramount in shaping young people's attitudes, skills and culture, it is vital that entrepreneurship education is addressed from an early age. After all, entrepreneurship is not solely about business creation, but also about setting the right environment for the development of a skilled, innovative, entrepreneurial workforce able to anticipate change and face challenges. With the overall objective of shedding some light on how far Member States have gone (in terms of strategies) in promoting entrepreneurship and how strongly it is embedded both in school curricula and in teachers' trainings/attitudes, the CULT Committee requested Policy Department B to organise a workshop on "Youth education & entrepreneurship". The present document is the compilation of the background papers and power point presentations prepared for the workshop.