Background

The ESP was developed in 2013 with the support of the European Commission, since than the internationally recognised certificate programme continued and extended. The number of countries involved in ESP has increased constantly and during the school year 2019-2020, the ESP was implemented in 30 countries and currently available in 25 languages. The globalization of ESP has been officially launched to the JA Network during the Global Leadership Conference in Berlin. The globalization of the ESP will make it available to the JA Network as a key tool to measure impact across multiple countries and diverse populations.

 

In the light of the last years’ economic turmoil, more than 5.6 million young people under the age of 25 are unemployed. They find themselves in difficult and precarious situations not being able to support a family and lacking the skills to be successfully employed and to contribute to the economic development of their countries.

The transition from school into professional life is one of the most challenging moments in life. A competitive job market requires young people to not only possess an excellent qualification but also the ability to apply their skills in the workplace, to be adaptive and to act in an entrepreneurial way. Employers feel the education systems do not instill young people with the skill-set they are looking for. According to last surveys, the skills mismatch regards important areas ranging from personal and social skills (autonomy, independence, etc.) to the ability to communicate in a foreign language, from soft skills such as working in a team to more specific abilities like managing a project (ERT, 2015).

ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION IS PART OF THE SOLUTION!

Entrepreneurship education is among the best insurances against unemployment. It has a broad spectrum of positive impacts from helping young people to be more creative, proactive, opportunity-oriented, and innovative, all the way to increasing the likelihood someone will start a company later on. By tackling the issue of what skills students lack versus the skills that they need we can have an impact on the youth unemployment rates in Europe.

This is the reason why the Entrepreneurial Skills Pass aims at providing as many young people as possible with the opportunity to have a practical entrepreneurial experience before they leave school and get a certification that explicitly promotes this kind of competences and skills.

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