Pedagogical alignment for entrepreneurial development
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Pedagogical alignment for entrepreneurial development Jing Zhang1,2 Accepted: 22 September 2020 / Published online: 6 October 2020 © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020
Background The challenges of the 4th Industrial Age have created a fundamental change which is starting a new chapter in human development. The relationship with technology now impacts significantly upon every aspect of life including work and has changed the demands placed upon each worker (Schwab 2016). For students and graduates, life has never been more uncertain. They need to be entrepreneurial in order to overcome new challenges, embrace constant changes and thrive in work and personal life. The role of education, from primary to higher, is increasingly to prepare students for the workplace, for jobs and careers that do not yet exist, as well as build up their capacity to cope with uncertainty, ambiguity and risk. Education can be the key to supporting future generations to thrive through change. It is against this global background that this Special Issue is published to explore the theme of “pedagogical alignment”. By exploring entrepreneurial development through a wide range of diverse examples, this Special Edition evidences the case for alignment as it explores entrepreneurial development through consideration of policy, school education, staff development and start-up.
Concepts of enterprise and entrepreneurship education Stating pedagogical alignment as key to enterprise and entrepreneurship education at all levels and for all outcomes, first requires clarity of definition. Assumptions and poor definition have plagued the field, and even Aulet, who has taught entrepreneurship for over a decade at MIT, points out that “too many people treat entrepreneurship as a catch-all term or as a single-minded focus on billion-dollar ‘unicorn’ startups… At MIT, we believe entrepreneurship is about more than just startups” (2017: 1). * Jing Zhang [email protected] 1
Enterprise Evolution UK, Liverpool, UK
2
Beijing Vision Chang International Education and Culture Consultancy Company Ltd, Beijing, China
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Vol.:(0123456789)
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Entrepreneurship Education (2020) 3:239–244
Understanding the concepts relating to enterprise and entrepreneurship is fundamental to researching and understanding practice within entrepreneurship education. Although varied definitions have been proposed each drawing out different perspectives, it is now widely accepted that not every graduate will start up a business, but that they will all need entrepreneurial mindset to think and act like an entrepreneur. Increasing educational definitions now lean towards the broader terms related to mindset development as opposed to the more narrowly defined start-up perspectives. In its guidance for higher education providers around enterprise and entrepreneurship education, the UK Quality Assurance Agency (QAA 2018) defines enterprise education as “the generation and application of ideas, which are set within practical situations during a project or undertaking. This is a
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