How to foster social enterprise education to promote a socially aware and sustainable economy: An exploratory study in Egyptian schools

• In Event: Education for social entrepreneurship and youth participation In Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and UAE

Proposal

It is becoming clear worldwide, that social entrepreneurship is a key concept in creating socially aware and sustainable societies. Hence, entrepreneurship education has been incorporated into curriculums at all levels in many parts of the world and has demonstrated numerous benefits for kids, including greater awareness of one's personal talents and skills, enhanced creativity and problem-solving skills, improved academics and attendance, and an improved grasp of the economy, finance, and the concept of social responsibility. Several research studies showed that childhood and adolescent years are the ideal stages to acquire basic entrepreneurship knowledge and foster a positive attitude about entrepreneurship (Peterman & Kennedy, 2003; Roffe, 2010; Wing Yan Man & Wai Mui Yu, 2007).
Looking at the Middle East region, with its high unemployment rates, along with the recent uprising and slow economic growth and development, which consequently affects the job opportunities for youth, there has been a growing interest to promote entrepreneurship and social enterprise education. Across the Middle East, higher educational institutions have begun to support the education of entrepreneurship in their academic programs, however research has shown that entrepreneurship education should start from schools, as children should be trained from a very young age to develop a culture that focuses on innovation and creativity (Hassanein, 2018). Also, having entrepreneurship education from a very young age facilitates the implementation process, which many of the entrepreneurship programs in universities lack (Hassanein, 2018) . Educators are required to start focusing on the important social issues in the country, allowing students to understand the current social problems, the challenges they can face and how to utilize their social networks.

According to the European Commission (2008), Education has an important role to play in creating an enterprise culture in Egypt. To create an enterprise culture, it is important that the education system in Egypt to be “charged with young people from being naive and unaware of the people in their country to be really responsible people who see poverty every day and learn to make plans to develop the lives of others” (Kirby & Ibrahim, 2011, p. 412).

The purpose of this exploratory study is to investigate the different entrepreneurship and social enterprise programs implemented in schools around the world, looking at best practices especially in the UK and Australia that are popular in implementing such programs in both the formal and non-formal education. For example, in countries such as the UK, substantial investment has been made to integrate enterprise education in primary and secondary schools, as it has been perceived that enterprise is key to creating jobs and improving economic growth in Europe (Athayde, 2012). Moreover, the study will explore the feasibility and best possible methods of implementing similar programs in Egyptian private schools, taking into consideration the different contextual settings of these schools. Nevertheless, the UK and Egypt’s education systems share a common barrier to enterprise education, which is its conflict with the examination, testing and assessment philosophy that is dominant in both systems, thus it is difficult to experiment with different pedagogies in a culture of rote learning, that focuses on teaching children to pass exams (Gibb, 2008).
Promoting social enterprise education in schools is a topic that is relevant to this year’s CIES conference theme ‘education for sustainability’, as it is argued that to promote a socially aware and sustainable society and minimize the challenges economies face, the education system needs to encourage students to think and behave more entrepreneurially by following an ‘enterprising’ learning approach. This is especially needed in developing countries, which face many challenges. The topic is also directly linked to the United Nations 2030 sustainable development goal number 4, ‘Quality of Education’, in which one of its targets is: “By 2030, substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship”(“Sustainable Development Goals”, Retrieved from: http://www.sdgfund.org/goal-4-quality-education). It is especially interesting to the Middle East SIG as it explores the potential in the region, in enhancing a social enterprise culture and entrepreneurship pedagogies in the educational systems, starting from primary level.
In reviewing literature, the contribution of this study will build on existing work by finding ways of applying such practices and overcoming the challenges in developing countries in both the formal and non-formal education. The implications of such critique for future practice is to compare, analyze and contextualize the efforts and practices in developed countries and empower youth in developing countries, such as Egypt to find solutions for the problems their society is facing, by first being aware of such problems and second by giving them the skills and knowledge to come up with innovative enterprises and platforms that offer targeted, scalable and sustainable solutions that would tackle the most pressing social problems.

The study is currently being structured. The contribution should be ready within 3 months time, thus by February 2019, the preliminary findings and contribution of this study will be ready for presentation.

Author

• Heba Abdel-Fadeel Hassanein, The American University in Cairo