SKILLS FOR BUSINESS SKILLS BY BUSINESS INTRODUCTION EuroMed Charter for Enterprise 2013 Highlights from the assessment of entrepreneurial learning and enterprise skills promotion in the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean region. Recent political change has gone hand-in-hand with the economic downturn. persistent poverty and high youth unemployment aggravated the crisis. Entrepreneurship promotion through education and training and fostering enterprise skills in small businesses is a crucial part of the solution to boost economic competitiveness and employment. Governments and enterprises should pay greater attention to entrepreneurial learning, in particular among young people and women. Ministries of education are called to play a leading role and build on existing good practice in their countries.
SKILLS – KEY INGREDIENT OF ECONOMIC RECOVERY As part of the assessment of the implementation of EuroMed Charter for Enterprise, together with the national authorities and businesses, the ETF evaluated progress made in the areas of entrepreneurial learning and enterprise skills. Taking 2008 as a baseline, the region has made good progress. While good practice in entrepreneurial learning has developed significantly, policy frameworks across learning systems must be established. The availability of training for enterprises has increased but access remains an issue and tailoring training means that more systematic data must be collected. Female entrepreneurs need more focused action.
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Skills should be designed with businesses in mind, and businesses could and should play a role in their design.
MOROCCO The country’s Interprofessional Advisory Boards, a network of service providers, regularly collects data on skills needs to support both policy makers and training providers. There is a range of data sources on training for small businesses but no comprehensive pooling or assessment framework. The recent national industrial strategy pinpoints human capital in priority economic sectors as a matter of concern. It could be used as a platform for setting up a more systemic approach to collect and use information on skills within the small business sector.
ALGERIA Algeria has increased the availability of workplace training mainly through state funds for apprenticeship and continuous training and for start-ups in the area of information and communications technology. Training on finances, market research, relations with banks and account management are on offer to prospective entrepreneurs. Businesses are required to invest at least 2% of their annual wage bill in training and apprenticeship. Nevertheless more effort is required to improve access to training for SMEs and strengthen cultural role models of self-employment.
TUNISIA The teaching of entrepreneurship is compulsory throughout all three-year Bachelor programmes, with a progressive approach to consolidating student knowledge and competence. Nonformal entrepreneurial learning, complementing the efforts made within the formal education system, is mainly supported by donors and is project-based. The assessment shows that many initiatives in collaboration with national institutions try to assess or promote entrepreneurial learning in universities and in vocational education and training centres. To be successful and sustainable, these initiatives need stronger leadership from national institutions.
LIBYA As Libya is reaching fully-fledged assessment under the EuroMed Charter, the methodology has been used to structure initial reflections on the state of play and needs for policies that better support SMEs. Whereas entrepreneurial learning throughout the education system is still quite weak, the government is promoting entrepreneurship, technology transfer and innovation for enterprises through an annual conference. The intention is to learn from the experience of other countries and to build upon it.
EGYPT There are promising developments in thirdlevel education, but a specific policy instrument to promote ‘across campus’ entrepreneurship is yet to be defined. The Supreme Council of Universities initiative for promoting graduate employability, comprising different institutions, includes entrepreneurial skills. This provides an opportunity to create a learning sequence in entrepreneurship between post-secondary and tertiary education. University-business cooperation requires more strategic attention.
LEBANON The ETF-supported project, chaired by the Minister of Education and Higher Education, aims to embed entrepreneurial learning in the Lebanese education system. The project includes curricula reform, piloting entrepreneurial learning in selected schools to prepare teachers and school managers. The ultimate goal is to upscale the results of the project into the education system as a whole and contribute to a lifelong entrepreneurial learning framework.
PALESTINE In Palestine just over 5% of all enterprises are owned by women. To improve women’s entrepreneurship, a working group was established, composed of stakeholders from government, civic society and the business community. The group has set itself the challenge of overcoming the constraints to women’s entrepreneurship with a focus on fostering a cultural understanding of the contribution of women to the entrepreneurial economy, addressing the lack of training geared towards the women’s entrepreneurship market, and access to finance. The Ministry of National Economy leads the working group and is elaborating a strategy. A national network of women entrepreneurs further advances the partnership drive.
JORDAN Launched in 2005, the Queen Rania Al Abdullah Award promotes excellence in education by fostering innovation in teaching. Successful teaching stories are given visibility and shared widely. Criteria for the award define the core traits of an entrepreneurial teacher, including bringing creativity and effectiveness into the teaching and learning process and developing partnerships with local economies. The association which administers the awards also contributes to broader systemic developments in education and links with the private sector. It has built partnerships with the Ministry of Education and public-private sector companies to support its mission.
ISRAEL Massive government support for research, education and training favours technological innovation and links academic research with the world of business. The government collaborates with business associations and employers and it operates a network of 25 business development centres. There are diverse training programmes – also online - offered on vocational and management skills. Entrepreneurship communities have been growing around all large universities and cities. It’s now critical to move policy partnership to a new level where non-technological businesses have equal support.
TRENDS ACROSS THE REGION EDUCATION AND TRAINING FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP There’s a wealth of good practice in entrepreneurial learning but limited progress in policies. The analysis underlines limited progress in policy development and in particular how education systems are addressing entrepreneurship as a key competence. The challenge for policy makers is to understand why a lifelong learning model of entrepreneurship promotion is critical and to set up the necessary interfaces between the various levels of education from primary to higher education. Ministries of Education in particular should take more ownership and coordinate better with the enterprises. The policy context to women’s entrepreneurship remains very much undeveloped in the region. More concerted effort by government, business and civic society is needed to ensure women’s entrepreneurship finally gets the policy recognition it deserves. Excellent examples of good practice in entrepreneurial learning usually fall outside the formal education system and therefore non-governmental organisations are important players. Good practitioners should formally engage in the development of entrepreneurial learning strategies.
ENTERPRISE SKILLS More training is available, but cooperation with businesses and data on their skills needs must be improved
THE ETF PROMOTES ENTREPRENEURIAL INDIVIDUALS... Our support in the partner countries is set against the EU’s wider policy drive for a more competitive enterprise environment. It includes policy assessments, in some cases also assistance in policy design and implementation, as well as facilitating good practice exchange. The ETF supports the European Commission in monitoring of wider enterprise policy in the pre-accession and neighbourhood regions, providing recommendations for policy improvement, and general support to international dialogue on skills with the countries neighbouring the EU. For more information contact Mariavittoria Garlappi at mvg@etf.europa.eu
...AND ENTREPRENEURIAL COMMUNITIES The ETF has launched an open call to identify local partnerships of businesses, vocational education and training providers, local administrations or civil society groups that foster skills, entrepreneurship and job creation in the partner countries. The initiative aims to identify and acknowledge entrepreneurial communities in the partner countries, facilitate peer learning and inform policy making. For more information contact Pirita Vuorinen at pvu@etf.europa.eu.
Some improvement has been made in bringing forward skills promotion for SMEs, especially in the availability of training. Nevertheless, national governments, the business community and training providers should commit for greater national coordination and overall skills improvement. More needs to be done to secure reliable and systematic data on the skills requirements of SMEs and training availability and uptake.
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