An International Survey of Entrepreneurship Education

Entrepreneurship skills are very different from managerial skills. Physiologically, entrepreneurial skills are the function of a developed right hemisphere of the brain, while managerial skills are processed in the left side of the brain. The development of entrepreneurs, therefore, is quite different from managerial development. According to Distinguished Professor Raymond W.Y. Kao, many people lose their entrepreneurial spirit because of the educational system. The problem appears to stem from the fact that traditional education teaches to formalize before doing, while entrepreneurs prefer action rather than pen and paper. This paper begins with a literature review. It then describes and analyzes entrepreneurship education in Canada, the US, Australia and Europe. It explains what is being taught and how. Based on the curriculum of almost fifty schools of business, the author develops a learning agenda, ranging from business basics and techniques, to character development skills and integration. Recommendations are then made, based on outstanding examples of entrepreneurship education in different countries.