Entrepreneurship and higher education: an employability perspective

This paper argues that entrepreneurship can be seen as a special form of employability. When universities and colleges promote employability, they are also promoting elements of entrepreneurship. However, if this is to lead to self-employment, more is needed. Students need to understand what it means to be self-employed, what sources of help are available and where the main pitfalls lie. Higher education already does something to meet these needs but provision is restricted and not, in practice, equally available to all students. The lack of systematic research in this area means that there is a shortage of evidence about interesting and effective practices; about ‘quality signals’ - indicators that provision is of the highest quality; and about the connections between entrepreneurship, employability and mainstream higher education curricula in all subject areas at postgraduate and undergraduate levels.

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