Critical Issues Surrounding Entrepreneurship Education--Present, Past, Future--A Federal Perspective.

Overview & Synopsis

Entrepreneurship education has been of national concern for many years. In the early 1970s, the major thrust of Federal leadership was directed toward the expansion of minority businesses. Following a Presidential Executive Order, a cabinet-level Interagency Council for Minority Business Enterprise was established by the Secretary of Commerce in 1971. The issue then, as it is today, was to address the dramatic lag in minority participation in American business ownership. Recognizing that education and training were at the heart of the problem, the Council requested the then-Department of Health, Education and Welfare to establish a task force on education and training for minority business enterprise. That task force, which held hearings and conducted in-depth studies, concluded that the high failure rate of minority-owned businesses and the critical element in business survival and growth were related to management capabilities. From this task force came many instructional materials for entrepreneurship education, including those developed by the National Center for Vocational Education, that are in wide use today. The present Administration is committed to the further development of minority-owned businesses, with a goal of the formation of at least 60,000 new minority businesses and the expansion of a similar number over the next 10 years. The Department of Education is committed to providing leadership in the field of entrepreneurship education. Plans call for finding a way to document achievement, developing a resource guide, enhancing communications, and upgrading teacher education for entrepreneurship. (KC)