A hundred participants gathered yesterday in Pori (FIN) in the framework of the Youth Entrepreneurship Strategies (YES) project* with a common goal: promote entrepreneurship education (EE) in schools. They dedicated the day to exchanging best practices on EE activities and strategies.

With youth unemployment in the EU averaging just below 24 % with a peak in Spain at over 46 %, YES partners consider EE not only as an excellent mean to harness pupils and students for working life but for life generally. Indeed, EE, on top of increasing awareness on entrepreneurship contributes to their personal development. EE promotes self-confidence, leadership and team working skills, critical thinking and risk taking behaviour or, as specialists put it, the “2020 superskills”.

Keynote speaker Aaron Michelin, CEO of Enersense Ltd. underlined “the need to acquire experience in risk management, and perhaps even more, in admitting failures”.

During the workshops, the eight project partners* reaped the benefit from extensive research and mapping work that had been carried out during past months and showcased some of their initiatives. These initiatives all contribute to implementing the European Union’s Oslo Agenda for entrepreneurship education at regional level.

The region of Murcia (E) for instance presented its Regional Entrepreneurship Plan “Plan Emprendemos” which promotes entrepreneurship and an entrepreneurial culture and supports intraregional networking. These three components break down into 35 different activities, and to mention but two of them: the EJE & EME (Young Enterprise Europe and An Enterprise in my School) Projects and the Imagina (Imagine a different Company) Contest.

In the remaining months of the project, the YES partners will concentrate on drawing the conclusions from the regional mapping and on developing policy recommendations and regional action plans. The results will be presented in a final conference to take place at the end of 2012.

* YES is a three-year INTERREG IVC project running until 31 December 2012 and bringing together 8 partners: The regions of Östergötland (S), Opole (PL), Zilina (SK), Murcia (E) and South East (IRL) as well as Pori Regional Development Agency (FIN), Junior Achievement Estonia and the Assembly of European Regions

The Assembly of European Regions (AER – aer.eu) is the largest independent network of regions in wider Europe. Bringing together more than 250 regions from 35 countries and 16 interregional organisations, AER is the political voice of its members and a forum for interregional co-operation.

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