Policy

The Norwegian Government has an ambition that Norway should be an international leader in entrepreneurship education. The final report from a five-year independent evaluation of the national "Strategic Plan for Entrepreneurship in the Education System" has just been published.

Some of the main conclusions are:

• JA-YE Norway has a crucial role in offering entrepreneurial learning opportunities in the Norwegian school system. The recommendations from the evaluators are to continue the cooperation between the government and JA-YE Norway and to increase the support to the organisation.
• They recommend that JA-YE Norway should continue its work on higher education, but at the same time keep up the pace of growth in compulsory education.
• They suggest strengthening the cooperation between JA-YE Norway and initial teacher training institutions in order to increase knowledge and competence through continuous professional development among teachers.

The action plan for entrepreneurship education has had an important role in putting entrepreneurship on the agenda and played an important role in the continuation of the government's efforts to focus on entrepreneurship in education.

The report also provides a summary of several research projects examining the distribution and impact of JA-YE programmes and other forms of entrepreneurship education in the period 2010-2014. Although the evaluators have not carried out particular evaluation of the activities in JA-YE Norway, many of the different actors they interviewed have underlined the importance of JA-YE Norway and their work. In particular, JA-YE Norway has a huge impact and a very important role regarding the activities in compulsory education (age 6 to 19). Positive findings in a former evaluation done by the government (2011) regarding efficiency and quality of the deliveries from JA-YE Norway, resulted in increased support and continuous cooperation. In the evaluation of the strategic plan, the evaluators underline that the results of this collaboration represent the most significant impact of their plan aimed at primary and secondary education.

The Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education (NIFU) and Eastern Norway Research Institute (ENRI) did the evaluation, and they conclude that it is important to continue to have a strong focus on entrepreneurship education in the future. Entrepreneurship is a key factor for change and development of the society, and expertise in entrepreneurship is a competence, which should be encouraged at all levels of education. The recommendation is to continue to develop and increase entrepreneurial learning both in compulsory education and in higher education. However, considering the differences between the two types of institutions, they suggest compulsory and higher education should be followed up with different strategies, but viewed within the same overall context.

Read the full report in Norwegian here.

Download the English summary here.