Education for Enterprise

Context for Education for Enterprise

Education for Enterprise enhances what, and how, young people learn to enable them to participate and contribute locally and globally and meet the demands of a rapidly changing world environment.

Education for Enterprise is an approach as well as a context for teaching and learning. It involves acquiring knowledge across the eight curriculum learning areas and key competencies of the New Zealand Curriculum, and promotes effective teaching practice.

Education for Enterprise can play a central role in achieving the direction set out in the New Zealand Curriculum and prepare our students to meet future challenges by utilising 21st century-focused learning approaches.

Changes in New Zealand society

Our school leavers are likely to have a number of different jobs and roles over their lifetime, and with the emergence of more flexible working patterns, how they work is changing too.

Increasing, importance is being placed on communication and interpersonal skills, with all young people requiring the abilities to be flexible and to change.

This demands different and innovative approaches to learning that may vary from successful approaches used in the past.

New and innovative learning approaches might involve:

• building learning capacity for an unknown future
• new knowledge generation
• authentic tasks
• building competencies
• foregrounding intellectual skills
• having multiple learning pathways
• self-efficacy, self-motivation, risk taking.

Why is a new approach to learning important?

• Changes in society and the economy
• "Fast capitalism" – niche markets and the ability to rapidly change to meet/drive changing consumer needs and values
• Less hierarchical workplace structures
• New ways of working
• New ideas about knowledge
• No jobs for students who are "failed"
• Schools no longer the main source of knowledge
• We do not know what is needed for the future.

The New Zealand Curriculum offers an opportunity for schools to meet students’ individual needs and aspirations, and to respond to local needs. This flexibility provides conditions for the growth of Education for Enterprise in schools.

The New Zealand Curriculum encourages schools to engage with communities and open pathways for learning. Partnerships with business and other community groups give students authentic learning experiences to develop values, knowledge, and competencies to live full and satisfying lives.

Schools design and shape their own curriculum to provide students with learning opportunities that achieve the vision the school sets for its students. How Education for Enterprise is integrated into teaching and learning programmes is up to individual schools.

Education for Enterprise is about promoting an approach to learning – one that is real, relevant, and gives students responsibility for their learning.

Benefits for schools

Education for Enterprise provides opportunities for students to link their learning to "real-life" situations. It combines classroom learning and participation in the broader community, including the world of business, and reinforces the relevance and value of what is learned in the curriculum. To be effective, Education for Enterprise is best embedded across the curriculum of the school.

Education for Enterprise provides students with opportunities to:

• become engaged in their learning through school/community partnerships
• apply their curriculum knowledge and skills to real contexts
• use initiative and be resourceful
• gain NCEA credits at the same time as developing the key competencies in senior secondary schooling
• have a better understanding of the world outside school.

Students leave school equipped with enterprising attributes that empower them to stand tall as New Zealanders, seize opportunities, overcome obstacles, and make a positive contribution to their community.

Education for Enterprise offers opportunities for schools to:

• develop closer links with their community, including business
• foster partnerships that will turn into long-term relationships with community and business enterprises
• widen access to a broad range of contexts and teaching and learning resources for developing students' knowledge and key competencies
• access NZQA and industry-recognised qualifications for senior students.

Benefits for community

Schools work in partnership with community and business to embed enterprise in the culture of the school and display it in leadership, teaching and learning, and all areas of school life.

Students gain an appreciation of the importance of business in New Zealand society and develop the skills, attitudes, and desire to participate in it.

• Business can share skills and knowledge, and build their understanding of curriculum through involvement with local schools.
• Communities see that students are actively contributing to the well-being of their communities.

These attributes represent many of the competencies that the business community is now demanding of graduates. They align to the key competencies of the New Zealand Curriculum.

• Generating, identifying and assessing opportunities
• Identifying, assessing and managing risks
• Collecting, organising and analysing information
• Generating and using creative ideas and processes
• Identifying, solving, and preventing problems
• Identifying, recruiting, and managing resources
• Matching personal goals and capabilities to an undertaking
• Working with others and in teams
• Being flexible and dealing with change
• Negotiating and influencing
• Using initiative and drive
• Monitoring and evaluating
• Communicating and receiving ideas and information
• Planning and organising
• Being fair and responsible