Small business projects encourage entrepreneurship among higher education students

Belgium gained 3 places on the ranking of the most competitive regions in the world in the Global Competitiveness Report 2011-2012 report of the World Economic Forum. Moreover, the report praises Belgium for its management schools for which Belgium is ranked in the absolute top. Surprisingly, the Total Entrepreneurial Activity Index from de Global Entrepreneurship Monitor indicates that Belgium, is not scoring well on entrepreneurship. Education has an important role to play in this area and, as all over Europe; initiatives have been taken to level up the entrepreneurial skills of young people. JA-YE Europe is in Europe the largest provider of entrepreneurship education programmes. JA-YE brings together the public and private sectors to provide young people with high-quality education programmes to teach them about enterprise, entrepreneurship, business and economics in a practical way. This article elaborates on the Flemish programmes in this area, gives examples of ‘Small Business Projects’ as put into practice at the K.H.Kempen University College and makes suggestions for possible collaboration with Russian universities.status: publishe