Abstract:
Entrepreneurship education is considered as one of the most
persuasive way which determines the strength of the economy. It’s a
way in which flexibility in terms of moulding one’s own self to face
the hardship of the world of entrepreneurship is taught in a practically
applicable way so as to align with the changing workforce demand.
The paradigm shift in education brings challenges to the educators.
This has made extremely necessary to make essential changes in the
curriculum of entrepreneurship teaching and training. The present
study was conducted with an aim to evaluate the effectiveness of the
entrepreneurship education offered as a post-graduate management
programme at Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDII),
Gujarat, India. These pedagogical inputs help to impart the “hard skills”
and “soft skills”, which are essential for the entrepreneurial journey.
The paper reflects on the experience of a 2-year entrepreneurship
programme designed and introduced in the academic curriculum.
The data was collected from four consecutive batches at three stages
during the 2-year programme. For the first stage, data was collected
using the Test of General Enterprising Tendency (GET) developed by
Caird and Johnson (1989) to assess the competencies of the students.
For the second stage, the introduced pedagogical intervention has been
analysed by making students undergo a specialized education, named
as “New Enterprise Creation” and “Family Business Management” and
for the third stage, the students were assessed on the basis of career
they are pursuing after completing the course.The findings highlight the analysis of students based on the specialization
they have opted and indicated various sectors where they have ventured
either in new business or serving in the corporate which is represented
through a pictorial model of pedagogical intervention. Further GET
analysis discussed the effect of various observable competencies on the
entrepreneurial self of students.
The article represents a connected model of nurturing the competencies
of students, creating an individual learning environment while imparting
an understanding, and insights on the entrepreneurial propensity of the
students. The present study builds an early experience of connecting
classroom teaching with experiential learning and providing a model
on entrepreneurship education for effective practices in higher
educational environment.
The present article is innovative in nature as it has been practically
implemented and argues on the holistic approach towards building a
pedagogical model for entrepreneurship education and simultaneously
nourishing and nurturing the entrepreneurial competencies.
