During the past five years, this question has been exercising the minds of groups and think tanks such as the World Economic Forum and the European Commission. How do countries design and develop education systems aimed at turning out successful entrepreneurs - people with the ability to turn ideas into action?
And if entrepreneurial education is about developing the ability to act in an entrepreneurial manner, what sort of teachers are required? What sort of curriculum and how should it be taught?
Will it require a fundamental shift away from traditional approaches to learning - from a passive classroom experience to new hands-on models, where students create, innovate, learn to recognise and seize opportunities, and plan and manage projects in an environment where risk-taking is part of the game?
Part of the answer is fostering a culture where "entrepreneur" is seen as a valid career choice - where positive, mainstream views and values attract young people from an early age. In its recently-released report on combating global youth unemployment, Avoiding a lost generation, EY suggests a five-point action plan, including media campaigns to promote the link between job creation and entrepreneurship, and encouraging a more integrated connection between government and industry.
But more is needed.
Without a structured and embedded programme of specialised training in our schools, young people with great ideas are likely to enter the workforce with little idea of how to make a start-up work. A raft of studies show children with entrepreneurial parents (or other close family members) are more likely to become entrepreneurs themselves, compared with children without these connections. This is an area where our schools can help plug the gap.
In this country, great work is being done by the Young Enterprise Scheme, where Year 12-13 students get the chance to set up a company and run it for a year, with real profits or losses. Results are likely to include identifying opportunities, teamwork, problem-solving, independence, resilience, communications and marketing, and decision-making.
Or, in schools that offer it, students can take NCEA units in business studies, which include taking a product or service to their local market. Along the way they'll develop better financial literacy, understand how businesses make money and probably change their ideas about failure.
But our schools still lack comprehensive and structured entrepreneurship programmes, along with the staff qualified to teach them.
From the teachers' point of view, it's not just a question of acquiring knowledge.
As the European Commission puts it: "... Attitude and behaviours are probably more important than knowledge about how to run a business ... Such competencies are best acquired through people-led inquiry and discovery that enables students to turn ideas into action ... It requires nothing less than a sea change in the approach to education, emphasising active learning and the provision of new experiences for students outside the classroom." Similar themes are canvassed in a report, Educating the Next Wave of Entrepreneurs, published by the World Economic Forum in 2009 - the first time entrepreneurial education was considered in a formal, systematic way.
In his foreword to the report, founder and executive chairman Klaus Schwab says education has great power to generate an entrepreneurial mindset and needs to once again become a top priority for governments and the private sector.
"Entrepreneurship and education are two extraordinary opportunities that need to be leveraged and interconnected if we are to develop the human capital required for building societies of the future," he says.
"Innovation and entrepreneurship provide a way forward for solving the global challenges of the 21st century, building sustainable development, creating jobs, generating renewed economic growth and advancing human welfare." The report's recommendations included transforming the education system, rather than simply adding entrepreneurship "as a subject on the perimeter", building stronger entrepreneurial ecosystems by strengthening the ties between business and academia (a critical link), setting clear goals and outcomes (broad-based rather than narrow measures such as the number of start-ups created), leveraging technology as an enabler for entrepreneurship, and developing leadership and life skills.
As with all things entrepreneurial, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. What works in one country will not necessarily work in another without modifications. And entrepreneurship involves continuous learning across a lifetime rather than a fixed course of study. Although there are notable examples of entrepreneurial leaders who left college early to form hugely successful businesses, such as Bill Gates of Microsoft, or Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, these are very much in the minority.
While many entrepreneurial leaders do start at a reasonably young age, the experience they gain through education and time spent in a more traditional corporate environment is often seen as vital to their future success.
What's the next step?
The government needs to throw its weight behind entrepreneurial education, both in the formal school systems as well as informal channels.
This would include a programme to train teachers (and businesspeople and entrepreneurs themselves) to teach entrepreneurship in a radically different way from traditional lectures and case studies. We also need to establish a much stronger connection between what businesses need and the training that will enable students themselves to recognise and seize opportunities. Based on current skill shortages, subjects such as technology, engineering and science are likely to be more useful than law or accounting.
The challenge for schools and other educational institutions is to embed entrepreneurship into the curriculum, while repositioning programmes targeting specific skill shortages through fostering a desire for knowledge.
As the World Economic Forum puts it: "The entire system needs revamping or a reboot to adjust to the needs of the society of the future. Sticking to the status quo is dangerous ... Entrepreneurship education is not an 'extra' or a 'nice to have'. It is not an option in today's world - it is a necessity."
Jon Hooper is an EY partner and director of the NZ Entrepreneur Of The Year awards.
