How entrepreneurship taught in colleges

Entrepreneurship is a set of behaviors, skills and attitudes shown by a person. Through entrepreneurship education, the entrepreneurial skills and attitudes possessed by each individual are further integrated through the process so as to form behavior. Therefore, the learning process in entrepreneurship education must be able to encourage learners in building entrepreneurial interests, identifying and capturing opportunities, deciding and realizing opportunities into the form of initiative behavior. 

Entrepreneurship education in colleges in a structured manner was pioneered in limited numbers by business schools in the United States since the 1970s.  The business school, which originally only offered entrepreneurship courses, has now started to open a special entrepreneurship study program. Entrepreneurship education equips students with entrepreneurial knowledge in the form of  business startups. Scholars observed that entrepreneurial education evolved from a process-oriented curriculum to a method-oriented one. With design thinking, pedagogical entrepreneurship develops through repeated innovations to increase student satisfaction and learning achievement by integrating ideas of constructiveness, humor and role-playing, and justice and equality. 

The development of entrepreneurial education in European countries is slow. An expert suggests that the difference between entrepreneurial education in the United States and Europe stems from differences in the way entrepreneurship is defined. He argues that American universities play an important role in the local business ecosystem, connecting academics and companies to strengthen partnership networks of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and business practitioners. This condition does not occur in most European universities, which are government-funded. Universities tend to be more conservative and reject new approaches. A longitudinal study from 1995 to 2004 on entrepreneurship education in the UK finding that, between 1995-1999, only 17 universities offered undergraduate programs and 6 postgraduate courses in the field of small and medium business development studies. By the end of 2004, these numbers had only grown to 36 undergraduate and 29 post-graduate programs, respectively. 

In the Asian region, an Asian scholar emphasizes the “community of practice” as a suitable way to teach entrepreneurship in higher education in Taiwan. Meanwhile, entrepreneurship education in China began with the establishment of a business training center in the early 1990s, followed by the development of entrepreneurship programs at local universities. Entrepreneurship education in Chinese universities focuses more on the context of developing small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The education and training model in Indonesian, Indian, Malaysian, Filipino, and Singaporean universities, must be adapted to the environment and culture of each country in order to achieve maximum performance of the program. 

In Indonesia for example, entrepreneurship education in universities is relatively new introduced in the 1990s. The number of colleges in major cities offering at least one class in entrepreneurship is increasing every year. Most universities still partially place Entrepreneurship courses. Its application is limited to entrepreneurship courses in certain study programs (e.g., economics and management study programs), because the growing understanding in universities in Indonesia is still a practical approach. In its development, several universities began to establish entrepreneurship study programs.   

Entrepreneurship education in developed countries has long been developed on the basis of research and utilizing research results to increase the effectiveness of entrepreneurial learning. Entrepreneurship researchers in developed countries have found a variety of entrepreneurial education models according to each country’s conditions. Based on a review of a number of literature, various models of entrepreneurship education were found in research-based universities. 

Unlike developing countries, entrepreneurship education is taught to learners pragmatically. Practicality is reflected in the design of entrepreneurial learning more focus on the cognitive realm – how to start a business. The portion of the cognitive realm minimizes learning goals rather than the development of entrepreneurial attitudes and mentalities. Educators prioritize the target of achieving students’ ability to draw up a business plan. Learning methods are far from the touch of innovation.  

Educators are reluctant to use the results of research more on the grounds of not having enough time to read the latest literature. In addition, it must be recognized that most entrepreneurship study research monopolized quantitative approaches, correlations or influences of some variables partially, such as arranging puzzle pieces. At the same time, educators are indifferent to the necessity of institutions creating an atmosphere of entrepreneurship as part of the institutionalization of entrepreneurial values.