Irish Policy
Ireland's National Skills Strategy 2025 was published by the Department of Education and Skills in January 2016. It includes a commitment to develop an Entrepreneurship Education Policy Statement which will inform the development of entrepreneurship guidelines for schools.
The Department of Education and Skills already supports enterprise in schools through the development of a basic understanding of scientific principles and methods and of business. It also encourages active and collaborative learning, the development of ICT skills in the revised primary curriculum and good arts education, all of which foster creativity, innovation, risk-taking and other key elements in entrepreneurial thinking and action. Skills underpinning entrepreneurship are also central to the new Framework for Junior Cycle and there are many examples of good work being undertaken in many schools at transition year in mini-company formation and other projects designed to foster entrepreneurship.
All of the above skills, allied with the attainment of competence in a second modern language, form an important basis for lifelong learning and for creating a culture of enterprise. Educators are free to complement the above with specific entrepreneurship education resources such as those shown below.
At Primary level, entrepreneurship education can be incorporated directly as part of discretionary curriculum time or indirectly in areas such as drama, art, oral language, creative writing, project group/ activity or art.
At Secondary level, it can be incorporated into business subjects or Transition Year projects.
Free Online Entrepreneurship Education Resources
The Student Enterprise Programme provides teacher resources to support the 22,000 Plus secondary school students taking part in the Programme. The resources include a teachers’ manual, student workbook, sample student business reports and videos including helpful tips from successful entrepreneurs. Free teacher resource packs are available from Local Enterprise Offices and through the www.studententerprise.ie website.
The Entrepreneurial Schools Virtual Guide to Entrepreneurial Learning is one of the largest entrepreneurship education initiatives in Europe, co-funded by the European Commission through the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme (CIP). It aims at supporting teachers professional development in applying entrepreneurial learning in several subjects and learning environments (primary, secondary, upper secondary and vocational schools).
The guide is a practical and useful tool for teachers in primary, secondary and vocational schools that want to mainstream entrepreneurial education in teaching methods and learning processes they set up in classroom every day. The guide contains more than 100 tools and methods to support entrepreneurial teaching and learning, good practices and framework documents from 85 different schools in 10 countries. It also includes self-assessment and review tools for teachers and schools who want to assess how entrepreneurial their learning process are and to review their progress on a regular basis: Search the various tools