The Entrepreneurship Action Plan is a blueprint for decisive action to unleash Europe's entrepreneurial potential, to remove existing obstacles and to revolutionise the culture of entrepreneurship in Europe. Investments in changing the public perception of entrepreneurs, in entrepreneurship education and to support groups that are underrepresented among entrepreneurs are indispensable if we want to create enduring change. Only if a large number of Europeans recognise an entrepreneurial career as a rewarding and attractive option will entrepreneurial activity in Europe thrive in the long term.
Entrepreneurial education and training = growth and business creation Investing in entrepreneurship education is one of the highest return investments Europe can make. Surveys suggest that between 15% and 20% of students who participate in a mini-company programme in secondary school will later start their own company, a figure that is about three to five times that for the general population. In the same vein, the role of higher education in entrepreneurship goes far beyond the delivery of knowledge to participating in business ecosystems, partnerships and industrial alliances. With high-tech and high-growth enterprises increasingly becoming a focus of entrepreneurship-related public policies, higher education institutions are an active component of Member States' and EU's innovation policies (European Commission's 'Rethinking Education' strategy and entrepreneurship: IP/12/1233).
To read the original article: EUROPA - PRESS RELEASES - Press Release - Entrepreneurship as a main driver for economic growth
