Keywords

1 Current Relevance and Incentives to Promote Entrepreneurship as a Key Competence at the European Level: A Central Educational Task

Since the 1990s, a wide variety of developments, e.g., globalization, have led to rapidly increasing changes in both the economy and society. These have also resulted in enormous pressure to adapt to the needs of employees, companies, and entire economies. Western countries have recognized that they can only survive in this intensified competition with more modernization and more innovative companies. However, this presupposes that employees have very special key competencies in order to be able to be innovative or for innovative companies to be founded. In addition, employability must also be developed in such a way that workers can survive in constantly changing labor markets and social environments. In this regard, the Lisbon Strategy of the EU Commission from 2000 promoted key competencies that would be beneficial in the context of lifelong learning—above all entrepreneurship, creativity, and digital skills were highlighted as particularly relevant (The Council of the European Union, 2000). In the flagship initiative of the EU Commission (EU Commission, 2010) “Youth on the Move” as well as in the current “European Skills Agenda” (EU Commission, 2020), the importance of promoting these skills was affirmed. The OECD (OECD, 2019) confirms this with its conception of the relevant future key competencies and its various surveys of companies (Stifterverband für die deutsche Wissenschaft & McKinsey, 2020). The various recommendations and guidelines of the EU and OCED in this context pay particular attention to the dissemination and promotion of entrepreneurship education both in schools and universities.

The EU and the OECD have based these initiatives on an understanding of entrepreneurship, which does not only mean the establishment of a profit-oriented company but also as a general competence that involves developing ideas for society or the economy and the ability to implement them (EU-Commission, 2007). Entrepreneurial thinking and acting can also be demonstrated in the establishment of a social or eco-business, within the framework of intrapreneurship as an employee or as an “entrepreneurial self” (Bröckling, 2007), which realizes its own “business model you” (Clark et al., 2012).

2 Basic Design Recommendations for Entrepreneurship Education

The recommendations of the EU and the OECD also specify, among other things, how entrepreneurship education is to be didactically and methodically implemented. One idea is to integrate entrepreneurship or the topic of “creating new value” into existing subjects such as art, mathematics, language, technology, or economics and thus enable a recurring examination of entrepreneurship in different contexts (OECD, 2019).

In addition, “it is, however, absolutely necessary to foster a culture of entrepreneurship in young people at a very early age. (…) The earlier young people get involved in projects in which they can learn to be entrepreneurs in a practical way and act as good examples of the culture of entrepreneurship and of cooperation between individuals who share common goals and values, the better future results will be” (European Economic and Social Committee, 2013). In general, according to these recommendations, the teaching/learning arrangements are supposed to have as much practical relevance and action orientation as possible, with project work being viewed as an excellent option (EU Kommission, 2006a).

From a scientific point of view, it appears to be fundamentally important that competencies such as entrepreneurship are not taught by instruction, but are developed in action. In this way, a restructuring, expansion, and updating of the individual’s ability to act and self-organize takes place (Heil, 2007; Kaufhold, 2006). Therefore, entrepreneurship education that aims to develop long-term competencies requires a form of “enabling didactics” (Arnold & Gómez Tutor, 2007) and “macro-didactics” (Braukmann et al., 2009).

Following constructivist didactic approaches (Reich, 2004; Siebert, 1999), an enabling didactic assumes that knowledge does not only mean specialist knowledge, but also the understanding of processes and contexts similar to the concept of competence. This knowledge, in turn, cannot be generated intentionally, e.g., by “uploading” the relevant knowledge from the teacher to the learner in a mechanistic understanding. Rather, learning takes place in a self-organized manner in the learner whereby individual mental constructs are generated in a self-determined confrontation with the world. As an “enabler,” the work of the teacher is to create as many different scenarios, opportunities, and framework conditions as possible for these self-determined learning processes to take place.

A macro-didactic conception, in turn, can support this by providing such learning impulses. It could offer not just a single learning location such as school or university, but, recurring on a long-term basis, at a wide variety of learning locations in a wide variety of contexts and subject areas. In this way, the learner is able to develop a mosaic-like overall pattern and actually learn a competence such as entrepreneurship.

The most recent Entrepreneurship Education Impact research supports these theoretical considerations (Nabi et al., 2016).

3 The Entrepreneurship Education Situation in German Schools and Its Causes, Development Needs, and Obstacles

In view of the challenges identified, the encouragement of a culture of entrepreneurial thinking, as well as the maturity and autonomy of learners, should be seen as a pivotal task of educational policy, especially in schools as a central educational and learning space (Aff, 2008). The competent management of life in modern society and responsible participation in it requires independence, flexibility, personal responsibility, social responsibility, and the ability to act (Loerwald & Kirchner, 2019). Education in earlier phases of socialization has a process-triggering and reinforcing role so that entrepreneurial thinking and acting can emerge in a longer-term process. This cannot only happen in professional life or during university studies but has to be initiated earlier. The EU also refers to this in various statements (EU Kommission, 2006b).

Despite the considerate commitment to the development of new entrepreneurship education offers at the university level in Germany since around 1998, most of the action plans and recommendations that the EU Commission made to strengthen entrepreneurship education have not been implemented or have only been implemented in a rudimentary manner in the German school landscape. For example, an EU comparative study from 2012 in which 31 European countries were compared criticized that there was no nationwide “strategy for entrepreneurship education in general education” (Euridyce Report, 2012). This is also underlined by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (Sternberg et al., 2015), the study by the BMWI “Entrepreneurship in schools?!” (BMWI, 2010) and a current ranking of the development of entrepreneurial knowledge and skills in which entrepreneurship competence in relation to school education is evaluated as “very weak” by experts—and founders (KfW, 2020). All currently available teaching formats on the subject of entrepreneurship, such as JUNIOR, youth start-ups, Business @ School, etc. are voluntary. In addition, these exemplary learning experiences are unfortunately not usually embedded in any overarching theoretical and meaningful contexts. Such offers, therefore, run the risk of fragmentation and isolation (Krol, 2004), which prevents them from giving the learners a real chance to learn entrepreneurship competencies.

4 Entrepreneurship Education as Project Teaching: The Change of Perspective of the Incorporated Approach

If one now looks at project teaching in terms of its didactic and methodological foundation as well as its characteristics, together with the process and the competencies that are to be developed by it, it is noticeable that, in essence, it has exactly the same characteristics, competencies, and phases of the process that also characterize entrepreneurship as a key competence (EU-Commission, 2007). Here, too, an idea should be developed to solve a problem or to redesign and improve a situation. This idea then has to be planned, implemented, and presented in detail. To advance the situation of entrepreneurship education in German schools as identified above, a new perspective is being proposed, namely to move from “project-based learning in entrepreneurship education to project-based learning as entrepreneurship education.”

Project teaching or project work and project days are nowadays included in curricula nationwide. This approach is generally accepted as an action-oriented method for interdisciplinary teaching (KMK, 2021). In the past, teachers have not used this method in the way the curricula allowed them to. Petri (1991), for example, showed that only 0.5% of teaching time was spent on real project learning, although this seems to be changing now (Götz et al., 2005; OECD, 2009). On the one hand, younger teachers tend to take a more constructivist didactic approach and use corresponding methods; on the other hand, the stricter legal requirement for more vocational orientation can be easily combined with project teaching. Project teaching will, therefore, be used more intensively in the future.

A project is defined as one of four main forms of teaching (Klafki, 1991):

A project represents the attempt made jointly by teachers and pupils to link life, learning and work in such a way that a socially important problem that meets the interests of those involved is dealt with together (= process) and leads to a result (= product) that has utility value for those involved. The aim is to achieve a balanced relationship between mental and manual work (Meyer, 2007).

By jointly choosing a topic or a problem in coordination with their teachers and trying to develop a solution or their own position for this in joint work, students combine their practical world with the forms of knowledge acquisition in school. The goal is the development of planning, problem-solving, social, communication, and self-regulation skills, as well as the development of self-efficacy and the courage to change (Knauf, 2009).

The project work itself is usually divided into the following phases (Lenzen & Emer, 2005):

  • Initiation—Topics or problems for project work are sought and ideas for solutions or goals are developed.

  • Introduction—The learners get more detailed information in order to be able to implement the idea.

  • Planning—Tasks are assigned to persons, times, and specifications.

  • Implementation—The project is implemented in practice, thereby solving the problem or achieving the goals.

  • Presentation—The results are presented.

  • Evaluation—The project is reflected on together.

  • Continuation—Follow-up projects are initiated.

Consequently, entrepreneurship education can be integrated relatively easily by the following:

  • Addressing the relevance of entrepreneurial thinking and acting at an early stage in the initiation phase of a project.

  • Letting the learners clarify whether it is a one-time project or a long-term commitment and whether this should be a non-profit, for-profit, social, or eco-project.

  • Not only dealing with the planning of the project, but letting the learners also consider to which target group the project will bring which benefits.

  • Integrating well-known methods of entrepreneurship education, such as the Design Thinking approach, discussions with role models, simulations, prototyping, and testing in the corresponding project phases.

In order to build up an “entrepreneurial project culture” in schools, the following supportive arrangements, for example, could help.

  • The establishment of a “project office,” which is designed similarly to a “learning office” and, therefore, enables the independent development and implementation of a project by learners.

  • Infrastructural aids (material, project budget, rooms, etc.)

  • A “culture of recognition” and “instruments of recognition” that also make the projects visible.

  • Corresponding teacher training courses in entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurship education as topics in university teacher training.

It is also conceivable to design each teaching topic as a project or at least to integrate a project in each subject and thus offer a teaching/learning format for entrepreneurial thinking and acting in an interdisciplinary manner throughout an entire school time.

Overall, this approach appears to be a way of implementing entrepreneurship education in Germany not only in a quick and straightforward way but also as an option that better guarantees the development of a wide range of competencies in comparison to a special subject “Entrepreneurship.” In many cases, the school subject “economics,” which is currently only provided in a few federal states and, even then, only in selected school types, is viewed as the only systematic place for entrepreneurship education (Lindner, 2016; Loerwald & Kirchner, 2019). But this assessment results in a strong focus on economic knowledge. It neglects the cross-sectional significance and the relevance of action orientation, as well as the didactic-methodical knowledge of how competencies can be built up most sustainably.

Additionally, the common fear of a commodification of education (can be refuted and) should be enhanced by an understanding of education that is never acquired through instruction, but always only in active engagement with the world, which also includes the professional world (Blankertz, 1982). Even if Entrepreneurship Education is aimed more at the responsible person in the professional and economic world, it is essentially about the same issue, namely education for maturity, which “relates to the ability of the adolescent to be a responsible and independent subject” (Kutscha, 1995). This can also lead, among other things, to a more motivated, committed, and self-determined orientation and structuring of one’s own professional biography. A recent Kienbaum study showed that participation in activities or projects in the field of entrepreneurship education also increases the knowledge, skills, and abilities of students for a better professional orientation (Ivanova et al., 2018).

In summary, the proposed change of perspective may present a very easy-to-implement solution for comprehensive and effective entrepreneurship education at German schools.

5 Practical Example for Promoting Action Orientation in Entrepreneurship Education in Schools: A Modular Workshop Program

With the project “Circular Entrepreneurship Education in Schools of South Lower Saxony,” this integrated project-based entrepreneurship education approach is already being tested and implemented at eight schools in Germany via a modular workshop program. The content of the CEE program depicts the entire innovation process, from sensitization and the development of (sustainable) ideas through the creation of concepts and business models to actual implementation. The four modules are mainly implemented in the time slots for project teaching.

The four modules offered are the following:

  1. 1.

    Introduction to Entrepreneurship, Sustainability, and Circular-Economy: Here, the students are given knowledge about these topics and they are made aware of what these topics mean for them and their everyday life.

  2. 2.

    Idea Creation: In this module, the students should first identify a problem that they want to solve or find a product/service that should be improved. They then develop their own idea of how this could happen and check this idea for feasibility.

  3. 3.

    Business Modeling: In the next workshop, they try to develop an extended business model canvas for their idea and draw up a project plan.

  4. 4.

    Prototyping: In the last module, a prototype is built and a video is shot for an optional crowdfunding campaign. Both will be presented in the program final at their school.

Didactically and methodologically, the program is based on the EU requirements of the “Entrepreneurship Competence Framework” (EU Commission, 2016) as well as the learning cycle from Kolb (theoretical input, illustration, exercise, reflection) (Kolb, 1984). In the practical phases, an “entrepreneurial challenge-based learning” approach (Lindner, 2016) is pursued. This means that the learners have to master challenges in different contexts, thereby developing competencies such as (1) “analyzing,” (2) “developing ideas and strategies,” and (3) “implementing ideas.” In this way, they learn, among other things, creativity, self-efficacy, and multidisciplinary thinking and acting. In detail, action-oriented methods are used during which the teacher mainly takes the role of a mentor.

Thanks to the cooperation with the regional economy as a topic provider for ideas, service-learning tasks can also be assigned. Regional “green” start-ups are integrated as best practice examples as well. Additionally, a separate crowdfunding platform enables crowdfunding campaigns for student projects and therefore creates the opportunity to implement one’s own ideas and business models more easily. Another accompanying measure is the use of project offices in the form of learning offices, as described earlier.

The development of competencies in the key qualification “Circular Entrepreneurship” is ascertained and checked by means of competency diagnostics.

Since the first workshop on November 9, 2021, around 200 schoolchildren had taken part in the program by the end of 2021.

A total of 74 of these pupils have already completed the entire program. The evaluation of 55 self-assessment competence checks shows, among other things:

  • 30.9% of the students are now more confident that they can make a difference to society. However, 5.4% think that their confidence decreased.

  • 21.8% of the students say they are taking the initiative now more than before. On the other hand, 14.8% say that they are less willing to take the initiative.

  • When asked about methodological skills, 32.7% of the students answered that they were now better able to plan a project, and 18.1% had a different opinion.

  • Finally, in the final question about the overall assessment of their change in competence, 32.7% stated that they now feel more capable of developing creative solutions for social and economic problems together with others. Only 7.2% said this was not the case.

  • What is also interesting about the results is that the biggest increase of entrepreneurial competence occurred among the students who completed the entire program in 1 or 2 weeks without interruption.

Initial interviews with 5 of the 15 teachers involved in the program showed that around 90% perceived their students to be more involved in the project work during the program than in the regular lessons. In particular, the option of being able to design lessons in a very practical manner and integrate them into the curriculum via project teaching was very much welcomed by the teachers and school administrators.

The project will run until July 1, 2022. Then a complete evaluation of all competence checks will take place. In addition, all teachers will be asked via the same competence check how they assess the competence development of their students. Guided interviews are then used to evaluate how they assess the program as a whole and what changes they propose. The success, which is already becoming apparent, has also led to inquiries about the program in other regions. Therefore, the program will be extended to those districts in follow-up projects.

6 Conclusion

In Germany, founding and innovating are typically viewed as difficult, risky, and alien. Thus, there are too few points of contact and thematic approaches that make entrepreneurship more feasible to a wider range of people. This should be addressed at an early stage, especially in school as a central educational and learning space, in order to ignite the entrepreneurial spirit. The entrepreneurial mindset can be learned. It is not genetically predetermined. An affinity toward entrepreneurship arises from experience, competence, and performance. It is important to promote this as broadly as possible early on in school. The earlier this happens, the better and more familiar the possibilities of entrepreneurship become for adolescents. Learning the path or the entire entrepreneurship process from the idea through the concept to implementation for schoolchildren can, according to the format presented here, be consistently integrated and embedded in all school subjects via project teaching.

However, the first evaluations show that some basic conditions have to be considered. There are indications that students who complete all four modules within a week or two in a row show a stronger acquisition of competence in terms of commitment and self-efficacy than students who take the modules spread over the entire school year. Also, the commitment and enthusiasm of the teachers for entrepreneurship is an important factor. In addition, more detailed research is needed as to why some students perceived a relatively clear deterioration in some competencies.

As has been shown, therefore, the acceptance of the topic of entrepreneurship can be achieved on a broader basis, not just as a modern form of vocational orientation but also as a life orientation for young people.

Finally, as a further suggestion, the implementation of an integrative entrepreneurship education training strategy for teachers across the board at schools and universities should also be considered.