Project Overview

Enterprising Skills Can Be Some of the Most Valuable Skills

Back in the mid 1980s, you would have been challenged to fit the word entrepreneur in any curriculum across Canada. In the late 1980s, CFEE developed the first courses in “Entrepreneurial Studies” in Canada for the Ontario Ministry of Education. To support this new program area, CFEE worked with a wide range of partners, including the federal government and all the provinces in Canada to produce the video series “Entrepreneurship for Canadians: The Spirit of Adventure.” A copy of this series, with duplication rights, was put into every high school in Canada and was used, in some cases, for the next 20 years.

Over the years, there is now at least one course in entrepreneurship in every province and there are many efforts to help develop enterprising skills in students. CFEE believes that enterprising skills are valuable to everyone regardless of what one does in life.

That is why, working with our partners, we produced a whole new version of the series calling it “Entrepreneurship: The Spirit of Adventure” and posting all the materials to be freely available on the website. The website provides access to video profiles of about 30 entrepreneurs from all across Canada working in all kinds of ventures, mini vignettes providing a wide range of advice from the entrepreneurs profiles, access to the videos from the first series, and a vast array of support print resources including self-assessment tools, ideas for finding opportunities and generating ideas, and frameworks for a business plan if the decision is made to start an enterprise.

Highlights

• Video profiles of about 30 entrepreneurs from across Canada involved in a wide variety of ventures;
• Video vignettes, organized by topic, and featuring advice from the entrepreneurs profiled;
• Engaging video material that shares the passion of entrepreneurs that can motivate learners;
• Takes a broad focus on enterprising skills that are valuable to everyone regardless of type of endeavour;
• Wide range of support print materials;
• Specific section on financial literacy and its relevance for entrepreneurs.

Goals

• Help Canadians, especially youth, consider entrepreneurship as a career option;
• Encourage all Canadians to value, and develop as they can, enterprising skills that can be applied to any kind of endeavour;
• Help to increase entrepreneurship and enterprise education in schools in Canada;
• Support teachers involved in helping youth develop enterprising and entrepreneurial skills, behaviours, and attitudes;
• Demonstrate, via video, the passion of some of Canada’s entrepreneurs and increase awareness of passion as the number one factor correlated with entrepreneurial success.

Outcomes

• More Canadians value, develop, and apply enterprising skills to all kinds of endeavours – business, government, social enterprises, etc.
• More Canadians are able to successfully launch, grow, and sustain new ventures;
• More enterprise education is provided in schools across Canada;
• More teachers have the tools, knowledge, and capability of empowering youth with the development of enterprising skills, attitudes, and behaviours;
• More youth are able to effectively assess their interest in, and potential for, being an entrepreneur or applying enterprising skills within enterprises.