State-of-art survey of enterprise education, analysis and classification of results in www-database

The project ENTREDU, which is financed under the Leonardo da Vinci framework of the European Commission, aimed at collecting the features of different enterprise and educational cultures, analysing and classifying the theories and practices thus providing an initial frame-of-reference for new development. As a result of a two-year project a new Entredu.com-database was launched in September 2002.

The database covers information, bibliographic references and examples of different enterprise education programmes and projects to enable further development in the field of enterprise education. The information covers survey information from countries involved in the project (Austria, Ireland, the UK, Norway and Finland) and a few other countries. The database is an interactive one enabling users to participate in the accumulation of data and material.

The database contains, e.g., examples of different kinds of training programmes and the methods used in them. In addition, Entredu.com contains a great deal of bibliographic references. It is also possible to form a wider understanding about enterprise education by exploring the conceptual discussion and policy reports from different European countries included in the database.

Recently published report, "State-of-art of enterprise education in Europe - Results from the ENTREDU project", provides research results of the study - differences in national legislation related to curricula and national policies within the field of enterprise education.

The report also presents a conceptual discussion and their underlying meanings related to enterprise education based on a literature review. In addition, the report provides examples and an analysis of the enterprise education programmes run in the various partner countries. The report can be found in electronic format from www.entredu.com.

The development in the field continues. Small Business Institute has reserved further financing and will co-ordinate a new project ENTREVA (under the Leonardo da Vinci framework) that aims to focus on the existing methods, tools and measurement systems used in the evaluation of enterprise education and training. Also this information will be launched via an Internet database (www.entreva.net).