Cedefop’s workshop ‘Entrepreneurship competence in vocational education and training (VET)’ explored how entrepreneurship competence is embedded in VET and ways to promote its value.

Welcoming VET experts from all over Europe, policy-makers, social partners, researchers, and VET providers, Cedefop Executive Director Jürgen Siebel pointed out that ‘entrepreneurship competence creates value for others, innovation, inclusion, and sustainable development, a must-have key competence for all. In VET this refers to learners, teachers, trainers, school managers, and others.’

The workshop took place virtually on 17 and 18 February, and its objectives were presented by Cedefop’s Loukas Zahilas, who indicated the two most important guidelines of the discussion:

• The presentation of Cedefop’s early results on how entrepreneurship competence is embedded in VET.
  What are the most beneficial and interesting results from Cedefop’s pilot research on entrepreneurship competence in VET findings?
• Discussion around tools and methods that may help overcome barriers in promoting entrepreneurship competence in VET.
  Could the toolkit support embed entrepreneurship competence in VET?

DG EMPL’s Chiara Riondino stressed that the need to foster an entrepreneurial mindset is as crucial as ever, while EU Growth’s Dana Puia Morel gave a significant pointer as to the aspirations of EU policy: ‘We want all Europeans, not necessarily to become entrepreneurs, but to become entrepreneurial.’

Cedefop’s research methodology was piloted in Italy and Latvia between September and December 2021, with six VET providers selected in each country.