Are we there yet?
Stagnation in entrepreneurship teaching practice 10 years on
Andrew Cardow and William W. Kirkley
Abstract
In November 2007, changes to the New Zealand curriculum were published, with an expectation that schools would fully implement these changes by February 2010 (Schagen, 2011, p. 1). Among the changes were aspects that encouraged greater recognition of an entrepreneurial orientation. We set out to gauge the understanding preservice teachers have of entrepreneurship. We found divergent perspectives on whether entrepreneurship is more closely associated with economic processes and commercial activity, or can be more broadly applied to subject areas such as the arts, languages and music. However, a consistent finding across all groups was that preservice teachers are unaware of the requirement to teach entrepreneurship across the curriculum. Teaching entrepreneurship was seen as a “bolt on” subject and not as embedded in current subject matter. This indicates a lack of familiarity with the intent of the revised New Zealand curriculum, which has made it clear that teachers are expected to encourage New Zealand school students to have an entrepreneurial outlook.
Introduction
If the popular press is to be believed, New Zealanders possess a strong entrepreneurial orientation (Riley, 1995). New Zealanders are told and encouraged to buy into the paradigm. For example, the book by John Hopkins, Blokes and Sheds (1998), later made into a television series, celebrates the popular notion of the innovative nature that resides in the average New Zealander. There is also research evidence for this idea. On at least two occasions the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, an international survey of entrepreneurial activity within the participating country, has placed New Zealand highly in total entrepreneurial activity (Reynolds, Camp, Bygrave, Autio, & Hay, 2001, 2004).
A precise definition is problematic, though, with entrepreneurship commonly seen as involving a business start-up by an individual. In contrast, Shane and Venkataraman (2000, p. 218) describe entrepreneurship as “a process of opportunity discovery, evaluation and exploitation”. This takes entrepreneurship out of the business relationship and makes it more a way of thinking rather than a way of starting a business. This definition has much in common with the accepted idea of the entrepreneurial orientation, which Lumpkin and Dess (1996) describe as having elements of innovation, creativity, risk and proactivity. Presumably this is the meaning intended in The New Zealand Curriculum (NZC), which has as one of its vision statements that students will be “enterprising and entrepreneurial” (Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 8).
Basic schooling is important as an avenue for cementing popular ideals. This research project looks at how preservice secondary school teacher trainees view the construct of entrepreneurship and finds that they appear to be uncertain about how to apply the concept. Our research was inspired by an earlier study in this area. In 1997 the New Zealand educational practitioner’s journal set: Research Information for Teachers published a paper entitled “Inadequate perceptions of the educator’s role” (Cardow, 1997). The paper reported on research conducted with preservice economics teachers and their instructors within New Zealand Colleges of Education. The three conclusions reached were as follows:
•Colleges of Education saw their goal as “turning students into teachers”, with the implication that the skills of creativity and innovation in business are “not what [teacher training] Colleges are set up to do” (p. 4).
•Instructors of preservice teachers envisaged those involved in entrepreneurship as being someone with “The ability to make a profit while being innovative and taking a risk” (p. 3), a narrow perception which has not materially changed in the intervening period.
•Preservice teachers and their instructors interpreted entrepreneurship as “stepping outside normal bounds of making things happen” (p. 3).
Our research adds to the previous study by providing, in essence, a “snapshot” of preservice teacher training from 1997 to 2008. We report on the changes to the New Zealand curriculum aimed at including entrepreneurship. The research also uncovers the perceptions preservice teachers have regarding the implementation of entrepreneurship in their classrooms. We conclude that, despite the positive intentions of the Ministry of Education, 10 years on nothing much has changed.
Background
In 1987 the New Zealand public service, including the education sector, was subject to wide neoliberal reforms. In the postprimary sector these reforms were collectively known as “Tomorrow’s Schools”. Essentially, governance issues were devolved to individual school boards of trustees. The objective was to provide autonomy through independent management of secondary schools. The philosophy of the government of the day was to encourage entrepreneurship within high school management. The research outlined below critiques the situation 10 years after those reforms and during the tenure of another neoliberal Labour Government.
It is fair to say that at the time the Cardow article was published, New Zealand Colleges of Education did not see the teaching of entrepreneurship within New Zealand high schools as a high priority (Cardow, 1997). This was despite widespread support within high schools for long-running programmes such as the Young Enterprise Scheme and the Young Entrepreneurs Programme. Both programmes encouraged the development of entrepreneurial skills through the establishment of a working business within a school environment and encouraged mainly (but not exclusively) those students taking business-oriented subjects.
Between 1997 and 2007 the business landscape within New Zealand was dynamic, and the education sector also underwent wide changes. In the late 1990s most New Zealand teachers were educated within a College of Education that stood apart from the universities. The Colleges of Education have now been subsumed into their local university, which means that currently most secondary teacher trainees are educated at a university. In addition, the core documents used in New Zealand high schools have undergone changes. In 1997 the Colleges of Education utilised The New Zealand Curriculum Framework (Ministry of Education, 1993). In 2007 the Ministry of Education published NZC, which was intended to go some way towards addressing the development of entrepreneurial talent. This document is notable in that it explicitly refers to innovation and creativity and, to a lesser but still important degree, entrepreneurship being taught across the school curriculum. For example, included within the vision of the curriculum is “for young people [to be developed] who will be creative, energetic and enterprising” (Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 8). It makes clear that teachers in New Zealand secondary schools would be expected to pursue programmes of study that encourage innovation and entrepreneurship.
The interest in growing entrepreneurial talent is not a new phenomenon. From the early 1980s, in New Zealand and throughout the world, Western governments recognised that an entrepreneurial orientation can lead to economic growth, job creation, international competitiveness and technological advancement (Audretsch, Carree, Van Stel, & Thurik, 2002; Grebel, Pyka, & Hanush, 2003; Jack & Anderson, 1999; Ladzani & van Vuuren, 2002; Vetrivel, 2010). Fayolle, Gailly and Lassas-Clerc (2006) have suggested that entrepreneurship education is a way of encouraging economic development (p. 701). The New Zealand Government, through the Ministry of Economic Development, has placed— and continues to place—an emphasis on innovation and creativity within the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector.
After the 2001 release of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, which indicated New Zealand had a high level of total entrepreneurial activity, it became the position of the government that New Zealand should build a reputation as a land of budding entrepreneurs (Reynolds et al., 2001). The position that New Zealand held was reinforced in subsequent reports from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (Reynolds et al., 2004). The pursuit of an entrepreneurial orientation subsequently became a policy issue for the Ministry of Education. In particular, the ministry wished to promote an entrepreneurial orientation that would be supported throughout the schooling system. One way of achieving this was to increase the participation in entrepreneurship education at secondary school level. Such participation has been linked with increased creativity and higher levels of individual self-confidence and esteem, as well as greater levels of academic participation (Cardow, 1997).
Following developments elsewhere in the world, an in-depth investigation into enterprise education in schools was conducted by Renwick and Gray in 2001. They found that despite “enterprise initiatives” being promulgated, many school principals were ill prepared to implement such initiatives in their schools. They found that principals defined “enterprise” in the narrowest of terms as a specific business activity (Renwick & Gray, 2001). Notwithstanding the programmes available at the time, the report recommended that the Ministry of Education “needs to clarify what enterprise education means” (p. 32). The result of not clarifying the meaning of “enterprise education” and failing to educate teachers regarding enterprise initiatives was borne out in subsequent research conducted by Kirkley (2005), which revealed that the term “enterprise” to teachers meant “business”, and that enterprise initiatives were therefore activities taken up in the teaching of commerce, accounting or economics.
The Ministry of Education has attempted to foster the development of an “entrepreneurial culture” through “enterprise initiatives”. It has been acknowledged by several sources that entrepreneurial qualities can be developed through the education system (Gibb, 1987; Klapper, 2004). In the latest attempt to define enterprise education and what is meant by entrepreneurial culture, the ministry developed a series of guidelines for business instruction to be delivered at secondary school level. At the time of initial writing, these guidelines were in draft form and were in the process of open consultation (Ministry of Education, 2008). Since then the ministry has published the Level 8 Draft Teaching and Learning Guidelines for business studies, which, although they mention enterprise, do not specifically mention entrepreneurship (Ministry of Education, 2011). There is a clear indication that enterprise resides in the business discipline and is not intended to be a cross-curriculum aspect.
At the time of the Cardow article, the New Zealand education system had fallen well behind European governments’ efforts to provide the teaching fraternity with formal mechanisms and tools to deliver education in this increasingly important subject. The purpose of our article is to revisit the situation, as it was reflected in 1997, and compare it with today’s circumstances. We acknowledge that the world has moved on since the original findings, and we will therefore give attention to updating the current literature on the teaching of teachers to deliver entrepreneurship education.
Entrepreneurship education
Entrepreneurship is perceived to be a major source of innovation, job creation and growth, and is recognised as a measure of a country’s economic health (Audretsch & Thurik, 2000, 2001; Audretsch et al., 2002). The way a country has established its educational system can also help lead people to develop qualities that are considered important for entrepreneurship (Reynolds, Hay, & Camp, 1999). One finding, which we intend to focus on, is the suggestion that entrepreneurial education should change its focus from teaching to learning. For example, Boyle (2007) suggests that such a change places the emphasis on entrepreneurial opportunity identification and creative solution generation rather than on “problem solving” within an existing paradigm. The justification for this change in emphasis is that problem solving only leads to a reinstatement of the status quo and does not provide encouragement to look at creative solutions (Boyle, 2007). Such a shift in emphasis would require a change in teaching practice, structures and culture (Freed, 2005, as cited in Porter, 2005). Indeed, this change in emphasis is clearly evident when reviewing NZC. Hand in hand with the change in emphasis is a need to recognise that an “enterprising” attitude and approach to education lead to greater social cohesion, learning and economic growth (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2005).
Traditionally, in New Zealand as elsewhere, the educational system has inhibited the development of entrepreneurial qualities. This is because, in general, the system is geared more towards teaching young people to obey, reproduce facts and engage in wage-related employment (Hood, 1988), in contrast to the commonly held public perception of the ideals that lie at the heart of entrepreneurship. This perception suggests that an entrepreneur tends to rely on their own judgement, learn through a process of trial and error and create their own conditions in the work environment (Nicholson & Anderson, 2005). We suggest that in order for students to recognise entrepreneurial opportunity, the educational instruction approach needs to be modified—away from “honour and obey” to “explore and discover”. However, the current focus of the educational system in New Zealand appears to be traditional, which encourages analytical thinking rather than creative thinking (Bolstad & Gilbert, 2008; Fayolle et al., 2006; Luczkiw, 2007). The traditional school system has created uniformity among students and reliance upon an environment characterised by a high level of certainty; in short, work-ready individuals who are more or less productive from the moment they are employed. We acknowledge this can be one desirable outcome of the education system, but we also recognise that within the traditional education paradigm little attention has been given to the entrepreneurial orientation (Lumpkin & Dess, 1996).
In contrast to the traditional education system, an entrepreneurial education system is strongly associated with diversity among individuals who possess different backgrounds, interests, opinions and qualities, and with the ability to recognise opportunities in an uncertain environment. These differences are considered valuable, because variety is important not only for the efficient functioning of modern societies, but also to make a contribution to economic growth (Verheul & Thurik, 2001). Although the spirit of the Ministry of Education in furthering entrepreneurship within New Zealand secondary schools is to be encouraged, there is a risk of sporadic application, leading to behaviour that is inconsistent with the intent. There is considerable debate about the extent to which entrepreneurial qualities can be taught, but several authors agree that entrepreneurial qualities can be developed through training at an early age (Chell, Haworth, & Brearley, 1991; Kourilsky & Campbell, 1984; Kourilsky & Hirshleifer, 1976; Rushing, 1990).
Entrepreneurship education in New Zealand
As in the rest of the world, the number of tertiary institutions in New Zealand offering entrepreneurship and new venture programmes has grown significantly. Currently all seven New Zealand universities and a number of the polytechnics offer at least one course on the topic. Some of these institutions offer a master’s-level programme in entrepreneurship. This development of programmes in entrepreneurship mirrors the findings of research from Europe (Adcroft, Wills, & Dhaliwal, 2004; Kolveried & Moen, 1997), where there are numerous undergraduate degrees majoring in entrepreneurship. The growth in these programmes demonstrates an increasing awareness of the significance of an entrepreneurial approach and its importance to the economic health of the nation. This is acknowledged and reflected by the Ministry of Education’s release of NZC in 2007.
Our research commenced from the point of Cardow’s (1997) findings of the situation regarding the teaching of entrepreneurship in New Zealand. To reiterate, the article concluded that New Zealand had fallen well behind European countries in providing student teachers with the necessary tools and methods to teach entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity at a secondary school level. Subsequent findings confirmed that New Zealand does not have a good track record of cultivating entrepreneurial behaviours in the formal education sector (Frederick, 2004). Some initiatives—for example, the Young Enterprise Scheme and Young Entrepreneurs Programme, which are aimed at encouraging business rather than entrepreneurship—have met with success, with many financially successful companies being formed and disbanded at school. However, these have not appeared to lead to wide-scale, empirically reported, sustainable entrepreneurial behaviour past formal schooling. We suggest that a significant cause for this is that neither of these programmes is formally integrated into the secondary school curriculum, and consequently they are not afforded the same educational accreditation value as other subjects such as science, maths and economics. We believe this is one reason why the New Zealand secondary schools curriculum was redrafted: so that it specifically includes creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship.
However, not all enterprising or entrepreneurial initiatives are business-specific. A working example of this is the Northland Enterprise Teaching (NET) project, introduced into selected Northland schools to stimulate flagging student participation and interest in education by encouraging partnerships with local business and community groups. NET has been more than a relationship-building initiative. It is an approach and methodology that influence school culture by embedding “enterprising values” within an educational context. The NET project targets the “education in enterprise” dimension in that it does not specifically focus on teaching in business subjects, but rather on “being enterprising” while teaching across all subjects in the secondary school curriculum (Kirkley, 2005). In this way, the NET project’s aims closely resemble the outcomes envisaged within NZC.
NZC in secondary schools
The stated aim of NZC is to “set the direction for student learning and provide guidance for schools as they design their curriculum” (Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 6). This new curriculum appears to have been written to address some of the previously identified gaps in New Zealand school education. Those gaps include aspects relating to enterprise, entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity. Notably, the curriculum instructs teachers to encourage students to be “creative, energetic and enterprising” (p. 8). Further, under the heading “Confident”, the teacher is instructed to ensure that, among other aspects, the student should develop skills to be “enterprising and entrepreneurial” (p. 8).
Such a clear directive would suggest that the ministry has different definitions in mind for enterprising and entrepreneurial. If that is the case, this difference is not explicit when reading through the curriculum. The impression the reader receives is that entrepreneurial and enterprising are used more or less synonymously throughout the school curriculum. The “enterprising” nature of the document is made explicit within the first few pages. Outlined very early are eight principles and eight values. Enterprise and innovation are two aspects that appear in a list of these principles and values. More importantly for our research, an aspect of the thinking key competency includes critical and creative skills—in other words, they are part of one of the key competencies that any secondary school student needs to obtain (p. 12). Despite the words enterprise, innovation and creativity being liberally scattered throughout NZC, when it comes to the specific strands, entrepreneurship is only mentioned once—in the part of the document relating to te reo Māori. In this section it is claimed that students “will broaden their entrepreneurial and employment options” (p. 14). How they are to do this is unclear. There are other puzzling aspects regarding innovation contained within NZC. For example, it appears in technology but not science. Within the technology section teachers are reminded that students should “make enterprising use” of their time (p. 32), and towards the end of the document (p. 39) teachers are instructed that enterprising is defined as “innovative and entrepreneurial”. It is this definition in which we are most interested. To us, it appeared that the teaching of entrepreneurship had moved on considerably since 1997. The introduction of the curriculum document suggests an obligation to teach entrepreneurship. We were therefore interested in ascertaining from preservice teachers how they were going to achieve this and what specific tools they had received during their training to equip them to teach entrepreneurship to their students.
Method
We were interested in uncovering the perceptions of preservice teachers about teaching entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity. We had prior knowledge of the field, but not of what participants were going to tell us. We decided that an adaptation of the grounded theory approach was the most suitable. In this research we based our approach on concepts first suggested by Glaser and Strauss in The Discovery of Grounded Theory (1967). It is an adapted approach in that it follows the methodology suggested by Strauss and Corbin (1990). These two authors expand on the original grounded theory methodology and have refined the concept to include the prior knowledge and theoretical sensitivity of the investigative field. In following the approach by Strauss and Corbin, it is considered essential to understand the context of the gathered data and, in our case, at least attempt to understand the personal assumptions of the student or instructor being interviewed.
In following the Strauss and Corbin method it is also considered important to include the personal, professional and theoretical experience of the researcher in the coding and analysis phase of the research (Layder, 1994; Schatzman & Strauss, 1973; Strauss & Corbin, 1994). Glaser disagrees with this technique and this led to a professional parting between him and Strauss. Glaser refers to the inclusion of such external data as “forcing”, which would distort the collected data (1994). Glaser would rather that the researcher ignored prior knowledge, minimise critical reading and overlook existing trends (Glaser, 1994; Glaser & Strauss, 1967). By following such an investigative path, Glaser argues that his technique lets the data flow freely and avoids the issue of forcing. In other words, Glaser sees grounded theory as a constant rather than as a dynamic process (Glaser, 1994). However, to adopt Glaser’s version of grounded theory is to ignore the reality of external influences on both the subject and the researcher. By following the methodology suggested by Strauss and Corbin, we ground our findings not only in the emergent data, but also in relation to the world as interpreted by both those being interviewed and the researcher (Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1994).
The information was gathered over 2 months on three sites using a semistructured interview process and involving a mixture of focus groups and individual interviews. Thirty-nine individuals participated in the survey: 37 students and two instructors. This gave rise to three focus groups and 39 individual interviews. The interviews took place at teacher training sites throughout the major cities in New Zealand. Participants were interviewed at the College of Education of the University of Otago, at the Faculty of Education of Victoria University of Wellington and at the Faculty of Education of The University of Auckland. This approach gave us a good geographical and sociological spread and also fits well with the adopted methodology in that we are attempting to explore meaning from data previously gathered.
The interviews were transcribed and the transcripts were then examined for similar patterns, a “constant comparison” process which ceases once there is saturation. Our search for common interpretations and themes led us to the construction of the following discussion and conclusions. This was done by comparing like incidents with like incidents, which Miles and Huberman (1994) describe as “pattern coding” and Strauss and Corbin (1990) as “axial coding”. We then placed the data into conceptual categories with the aim of clearly identifying the significance and meaning preservice teachers give to the concept of entrepreneurship. In constructing the analysis, we offer the reader one view or interpretation of the social environment in which preservice teachers operate.
Once the data were gathered we were able to critically examine the content of our interviews and focus groups by extracting common concepts and explanatory threads. By reflecting on the previous study (Cardow, 1997) we were able to develop an understanding of how preservice teacher trainees perceived, interpreted and related to the concept of entrepreneurship. An important aspect of this work is that the personal, professional and theoretical experience of the researchers was drawn into the final analysis (Layder, 1994; Schatzman & Strauss, 1973; Strauss & Corbin, 1994). By following the refinements suggested by Strauss and Corbin (1990), we were able to allow for the prior experience of both the interviewed students and the instructors, and our own prior knowledge of the field, which is essential to the interpretation of the data.
Findings and discussion
The themes emanating from our discussions with the focus groups can be divided into three broad topics:
•the notion of entrepreneurship—what it means and how it is perceived
•how participants interpreted creativity and innovation as antecedent components of entrepreneurship
•how student teachers have been prepared through their training and education to deliver entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation in the secondary school curriculum.
Perceptions of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs
We were primarily interested in the tools and techniques the various teacher training organisations were utilising in teaching entrepreneurship. In order to set the stage for the discussion, our first question asked the subject groups about their understanding of the concept of entrepreneurship. The majority of student teachers appeared to perceive entrepreneurship as “doing something new”, with one group suggesting that “entrepreneurship referred to ‘newness’ and creativity, but in a technical sense it referred to ‘people who run a business’”. There were divergent perspectives on whether entrepreneurship was associated with economic processes and commercial activity, or whether it could be more broadly applied to subject areas such as the arts, languages and music. The majority of participants leant towards perceiving entrepreneurship as primarily a commercial activity. In two independent instances entrepreneurship was described as “a way of thinking”. This response gave us an impression that, for some students, entrepreneurship was more than just a business term, but when asked for clarification it was clear the students interpreted “a way of thinking” as relevant only to innovative business practices.
With one exception, participants agreed that engaging in entrepreneurship was primarily an individual activity, closely related to business start-up. Only one participant suggested that there could be a team of like-minded individuals pursuing an opportunity. For the majority of participants the entrepreneur was seen as a “business leader who undertakes risk”. The entrepreneur takes the lead in initiating a new venture and seeing it through to its natural conclusion—“getting things done”. That said, all participants also suggested that “everyone” could be an entrepreneur, even teachers, and it was the drive to keep “doing things differently” that led to the sustainability of this behaviour. Again we are faced with something of a contradiction. On the one hand, students believe “everyone” can be an entrepreneur and that it transcends business; and on the other, that entrepreneurship is a business activity confined to a select few individuals. Participants also distinguished between entrepreneurs and other small business owners by the degree of innovation introduced into the business. Entrepreneurs were perceived to have a sense of independence and personal drive, and an ability to use their personal initiative. Despite some disagreement, overall our participants came down on the side of interpreting entrepreneurship as being a business activity. In all cases there was a fairly lively debate over this issue.
The major concern—and a consistent finding across all groups—was how unaware student teachers were about the requirement to teach entrepreneurship across all subjects in the curriculum. For example, one student, when asked how he would go about teaching entrepreneurship in social studies, responded, “I don’t know. You are implying I have to teach it.” The interviewer responded, “Yeah, it’s in the curriculum.” This exchange suggested to us that there is perhaps a lack of understanding among both the instructors and the students regarding the concept of entrepreneurship. A common thread running through the responses regarding topic selection in teaching entrepreneurship pointed towards general business subjects such as marketing, accounting, finance and economics. Teaching entrepreneurship was seen as a “bolt on” subject and not embedded in current subject matter. This in itself indicated a lack of familiarity with the new curriculum. When asked whether they could specifically teach entrepreneurship, participants were unsure what they would actually deliver to students to address the subject. Many acknowledged the relevance of mainly business subjects to the teaching of entrepreneurship, but could still not provide any comment on how they would go about doing so.
In this respect, preservice teachers reflected the findings from 10 years ago. Entrepreneurship was seen then, and is still apparently perceived, as being firmly part of the business environment. However, as noted above there was some buy-in to the notion that an entrepreneurial orientation was a way of thinking or a way of viewing the world.
Perceptions of creativity and innovation
The concepts of creativity and innovation suffered the same fate as interpretations and perceptions of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs. Study participants became quite vocal about their focus on creativity and innovation in the classroom and claimed that this was an important aspect of their approach to teaching. However, other than a view that creativity was about “newness” or something “unique”, none of the participants could provide a cogent understanding of either concept. They were for the most part encouraged to be creative and innovative in their particular subject areas by their instructors. They perceived this to be a significant challenge and an opportunity to think outside the confines of conventional teaching delivery, but had not been provided with any tools or techniques to accomplish this. For example, when asked specifically about what tools students had been given to teach creativity and innovation, responses ranged from “not sure about that” to “I don’t think we’ve done much.” When specifically asked to provide examples of tools the instructors had demonstrated, one student group responded, “We have had a tutorial on how to get students to discuss things.” Further, when asked about tools to be innovative, we were told, “We don’t have a specific class in it—it may be woven in.”
Again the suggestion here is that the students have not been taught specific skills but are expected to just pick them up. More concerning is the notion that “it may have been woven in”, suggesting to us that the students are unaware of any tools for innovation. Finally, one group informed us that “She [the instructor] gives us a work sheet—it has all different learning styles on it.” In all of these cases no specific tools were given to the students by the instructors to assist them in delivering on one vision of the curriculum; that is, ensuring the students are “enterprising and entrepreneurial” (Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 8).
Teacher instructors provided divergent perspectives on the meaning of creativity and innovation. This was where the misunderstanding between policy and practice was most apparent. Other than handing down the new curriculum from the Ministry of Education, there did not appear to have been any consultation with teacher instructors and their institutions regarding the finer detail or meaning attributed to the constructs used in the document. Given the omission of this critical step between policy formulation and teacher training delivery, an inevitable outcome was the subsequent confusion about, or indeed total ignorance of, constructs critical to the delivery of education in entrepreneurship. Furthermore, throughout all teacher training facilities there was no evidence of a consistent meaning or common definition of creativity or innovation that would enable trainee teachers to comprehend their obligations under the new curriculum and the delivery of creativity and innovation in secondary schools.
Teaching delivery of entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation
All the participants reported that they had not been provided with any specific training or tools that would equip them to teach entrepreneurship, creativity or innovation. Other than being taught group work facilitation, they were not given any specific guidelines or practices that would achieve learning outcomes in entrepreneurship, creativity or innovation.
For example, we asked how a teacher would introduce the concept of creativity or innovation in the classroom. We were told at one site, “I am struggling to be a good teacher let alone innovation and creativity— I’m not even sure what innovation means.” “I don’t think we have done much” was the common impression the preservice trainees had in relation to entrepreneurial support. A clear indication emerged that there was a separation between the expectations of the curriculum and what was to be practised by the teacher trainees. This impression was further enhanced by responses such as, “We haven’t actually had a 101 on how to teach creativity or be creative”, evidence that confirms that student teachers are being told they have to be creative in the classroom without being given any guidelines on how to perform teaching in these areas.
Space requirements prevent us from going into too much detail here, but we close this results section with the following indictment. When asked how the students would teach entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity, three required aspects of the curriculum, we were told: “It’s an unreal expectation. If we are not told how to do it, it’s unfair to be required to teach something we don’t know about.”
Conclusion
In 1997 an article was published that illustrated the lack of understanding teacher trainees had regarding the entrepreneurial construct. Ten years on there have been a great number of publications attesting to the value of an entrepreneurial orientation in secondary school education. In the limited space we have had to present our findings it is clear that such a dissonance still exists. The secondary school teacher trainee in New Zealand is expected to teach entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity. Unfortunately it would appear that the message has not quite got through to those who will be the future teachers in New Zealand. After speaking with prospective teachers, we believe further work needs to be undertaken—with some degree of urgency—regarding possible ways in which tools for entrepreneurial education can be introduced to teacher trainees.
We are encouraged by the stance taken by the Ministry of Education in trying to inspire an entrepreneurial spirit to develop in secondary schooling. Similar policies are being adopted to varying degrees by governments throughout the world, notably in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Holland, Australia and other northern European countries (Birdthistle, Hynes, & Flemming, 2007; Woods, Woods, & Gunter, 2007). While the efforts of the ministry are to be applauded, we perceive a lack of congruence between intent, on the part of central government policy makers, and those who are expected to implement those policies; namely, educators at both the teacher training institutions and secondary schooling level.
Our research has uncovered not only a lack of common understanding regarding the key objectives of entrepreneurial development in the secondary education curriculum, but also widely differing interpretations of what is meant to be accomplished in terms of deliverable outcomes. Furthermore, trainee teachers, on realising they were expected to teach entrepreneurship, consistently voiced the need for “tools” to be provided that would enable them to deliver these policy outcomes. Due to varied interpretations of the secondary schools curriculum and confusion regarding expected outcomes, teacher instructors were ill equipped to provide guidance or practical skills to address this need.
We conclude that there is a need for a common understanding of entrepreneurship in the secondary school curriculum. There is also a need for clear instruction on how to deliver the required skills to trainee teachers tasked with achieving the desired outcomes. Unless there is closer collaboration between policy makers and educators to make an effort to cultivate entrepreneurial talent, our position of dominance in the field of entrepreneurship across the world will continue to languish and may ultimately disappear. We do, however, offer a suggestion for tackling this continuing problem. We believe there are existing solutions available to institutions seeking to align their development of teachers more closely with the requirements of the new curriculum. We suggest using developmental activities and delivery practices that evolved out of the NET project. These relate to the following key initiatives.
Entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation: A key starting point is to ensure that teachers, whether currently inservice or undergoing training, share a common definition of entrepreneurship. Unless shared meaning is achieved, there is a risk that teachers will attach their own interpretation to the construct, resulting in a fragmented approach to what should be commonly understood outcomes.
Central teaching strategy: An inclusive debate and strategy are necessary in education circles between policy makers, curriculum developers and teacher training institutions concerning the exact outcome of the new curriculum for secondary schools.
Recognition of business-related subjects as counting towards university credit: Greater recognition of other business topics—such as management (a severely depleted profession in today’s businesses), marketing, operations management, sales and human resources—would allow young adults to select early academic or nonacademic pathways to a chosen profession. We see the beneficial effects of this with the trades, but not with other professional business areas, including accounting.
We believe that the current situation with regard to entrepreneurial education within New Zealand secondary schools is in danger of being misunderstood and too narrowly defined. This is a situation that may lead to outcomes very different from those intended by the policy drafters of the curriculum. It is clear that, in order for the curriculum to be delivered, all teachers need to be aware of tools that will enable them to deliver an innovative and entrepreneurial programme to their students. In 10 years will a researcher, commenting on entrepreneurial teaching in New Zealand high schools, write: “Ten years on, and still nothing has changed”?
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The authors
Andrew Cardow is a senior lecturer in the School of Management, College of Business, Massey University.
Email: a.cardow@massey.ac.nz
William W. Kirkley is a senior lecturer in the School of Management, College of Business, Massey University.
Email: w.kirkley@massey.ac.nz