ENTREPRENEURSHIP; OPTION OR NECESSITY?

This era is characterized by two key elements. On the one hand, European Union faces its hardest challenge since its creation. Government debts, deficits, recession, unemployment and especially youth unemployment are the features that illustrate the epoch we live. The work environment is more competitive than ever and people try continuously to obtain new skills that will provide them a job. Masters, diplomas, trainings, languages certifications, and internships are piled in the CV but their professional future seems to remain uncertain.

On the other hand, global market trends change rapidly. New needs arise everyday and have to be covered by new professions and new businesses. Internet, Social Media, Globalization, etc. have given a different aspect to the work environment and the necessity of obtaining new skills that have never being learned in the traditional school and Institutes is crucial. This change also affect Vocational training: always more often young people that enter a Vocational Training Institute in a specific time and at the completion of their studies the market demands could be totally different. However, globalisation and the technological progress especially in the information and communication sector release great possibilities of new job opportunities.

In this regards, more than other type of learning, the Vocational Training field should respond to the need of creating new jobs.  Given the trends listed above, the possibilities of getting hired are getting less and less so the process of creating a job is essential if future professionals wish to have one. Creating the job is the first step and maintaining it is the second. But if young persons want to start or continue having a job this should be innovative and adapted to the technological framework of our area.

This process does not require special skills from the students, just the right training which unfortunately is not often provided by schools. Skills such as the students’ capability to recognize the markets trends, be able to reset themselves at any moment, and implement the ideas they may have are crucial nowadays. This is a procedure that can be learned with the right educational approach, the better didactic system and by well-trained educators. This entrepreneurial mind is not just about the creation of a company. It is about ‘’thinking out of the box’’ and creating something innovative out of scratch and try to implement it and reach it to a certain level of growth. This is a very useful skill that can be applied within a work framework, as well and it can be reached with a special guidance, mentoring and tools that educators can offer to students. Indeed, Vocational Trainers should not only be aware of these changes, but also try to go further and implement new educational approaches, exercises or projects that could give the students the above-mentioned skills. Knowledge should be offered outside the strict framework of books and exams. It should be useful, appealing, revealing the attitudes of every single student in order to lead them in their own path according to their skills.

New educational methods should enlighten the survival skills of the vocational students, their innovation abilities, the implementation capacities and their flexibility. Educators should create multitasking students ready to face every change in the work environment in the future but also to be open in new ideas. Professionals should teach how to use technology, social media, and internet research with the aim of allowing student to internationalize their skills. It is a hard task, indeed. This might mean that the educators themselves need to change their mind-set and be more creative and aware of technological advances and the need of this new era.  This might also mean that educators should learn new approaches and try to foresee the setting in which that their students will be asked to work.  It is a huge responsibility and requires so much effort but it is really worthy when we finally see young people developing their charisma and going one step further in their life. When they offer to the society and develop the world a little bit more. The feeling that we have helped in this process is the best sentiment a person can feel.   

Author: Athena Pitta, Language teacher from Greece