Wonder

Research Outline

Prepared for Celena A. | Delivered July 10, 2020

Impact Assessment of Youth Entrepreneurship Education

Goals

The aim of the research is to assess the importance and impact of youth entrepreneurship education at schools or tertiary institutions. 

Early Findings

According to research by Openly in 2017, the assessment of the nine youth entrepreneurship programs in Canada revealed that 72% of the program participants start up their businesses after the programs, 84% of the program participants improved confidence and self-esteem, and 90% of the participants have increased access to resources.
A Eurobarometer survey in 2009 across Europe and other industrialized nations found that 40% of youth aged between 15 and 24 believe that self-employment is very feasible in the next five years, compared to only 29% of adults aged between 40 and 54 who share the same view. And youth people tend to exert their entrepreneurial talent if there is appropriate support available to them.
“My first enterprise: Entrepreneurship by playing” is an educational sub-program targetting students at primary schools in Mexico. The program resulted in the creation of 1,327 mini-companies between 2009 and 2014. Tutors, advisors, and program participants' administrative knowledge and entrepreneurial skills were key success factors. 
Entrepreneurship is a catalyst for economic growth, innovation, job creation and equity. The book published in 2014 provides an analysis of the global entrepreneurship education and training programs for secondary education students, higher education students and entrepreneurs respectively. 
Entrepreneurship education and training programs should be an integral part of students' experience rather than an add-on to them. The programs should focus on developing an entrepreneurial mindset and encouraging students to see "self-employment as a viable career option." Other policy guidelines on youth entrepreneurship are available here. 
A research in 2017 analyzed important factors that could have an impact on young people's entrepreneurial readiness towards starting up businesses, in which entrepreneurship training (including entrepreneurial ability) has played a central role. Other factors are the change of class structure, family background, and prior experience, among others.
In Brazil, between 2013 and 2018, the youth entrepreneurship program (YEP) launched by Aliança Empreendedora (AE) has provided training to 1,727 young entrepreneurs whose age was between 18 and 35, created 491 businesses, and increased the sales by at least 8% per year for 470 entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurship programs were one of the effective means to alleviate the concern of youth unemployment (66 million youth people were unemployed worldwide in 2018). There are some other successful case studies available in the research.
Academic research in 2017 evaluated the effectiveness of youth entrepreneurship programs at tertiary educational institutions in Swaziland. The findings revealed that 93.7% of program participants agreed that the program is highly effective in gaining entrepreneurial skills, although older learners tend to have slightly different views from newcomers; 87.8% of them believed that they have improved their knowledge on entrepreneurship upon the training; 97.2% of participants thought that entrepreneurship education is effective to enhance their engagement in business; 95.3% of students felt they are motivated to start their businesses after graduation. More detailed quantitative findings are available in the research.
Research in 2014 investigated the factors that could have an impact on the intention of students to become entrepreneurs after entrepreneurship education in the Uttarakhand state of India. 69.5% of students who have taken business, management and computer application programs and had prior experience in self-employment would like to find employment after their studies as opposed to starting up businesses. The likely reasons for the outcome could be their bad experience in self-employment and adverse economic environment in Uttarakhand, among others.