Analysis of entrepreneurial competences among primary school students in north Macedonia using Entrecomp model

Abstract

Number of countries embraced entrepreneurship education as one of the drivers to more competitive and open economy. There are different approaches of implementation of this type of education in formal and non-formal educational systems worldwide. There have been sporadic attempts towards promotion of entrepreneurship education and implementation of entrepreneurial learning activities within the country since 2000. In 2014, North Macedonia adopted national strategy for entrepreneurial learning and since 2016, the Government has introduced courses of Innovation in 9th grade of primary education, and courses of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in 1st, 2nd and 3rd year of secondary schools in the formal educational system. In 4th year of secondary schools, the course name is Business and Entrepreneurship and has been available since 2012. The main output from the entrepreneurship education is producing students who are equipped with entrepreneurial competences, innovative thinking and proactive mind-set. In this paper, authors analysed the level of development of entrepreneurial competences among students of 9th grade of primary education (~ 14 years old). A survey with more than 1800 students (8% of total population of students in 9th grade) and over 55 teachers was conducted in the period May – June 2020. Students and teachers expressed their views about the level of development of the 15 entrepreneurial competences on Likert scale, according to the model of EntreComp (Bacigalupo et al. 2016). The entrepreneurial pedagogy that was in usage, was examined in the correlation with the level of developed entrepreneurial competences. Recommendations for improving of the teaching process will be submitted to the Government and the educational authorities