Entrepreneurship education, entrepreneurship competencies and entrepreneurial activities of alumni: A comparison between the engineering and other graduates of Estonian University of Life Sciences

摘要

Entrepreneurial mind-set, knowledge and skills to recognise opportunities andimplement ideas are vital competences for achieving success in the midst of rapid global changes.The main purpose of the entrepreneurship education is to foster those competencies. The presentpaper focuses on the role of the university education in developing various entrepreneurshipcompetences, and the share of entrepreneurs among the alumni. The aim is more specifically toexamine the relationship between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurship competencedevelopment in university and the later entrepreneurial activities of the engineering alumni. Theanalysis is based on a questionnaire survey of alumni entrepreneurship conducted in 2016 as apart of a programme ‘Edu ja Tegu- Development of entrepreneurial education throughout alleducational levels’. Chi-square tests, t-tests are used to compare the engineering alumni ofEstonian University of Life Sciences with graduates from other fields. The overall share ofentrepreneurs among the engineering alumni was 35.6%. The entrepreneurial activities wereimpacted by the time of graduation. It had also impact of whether the graduates had receivedentrepreneurship courses during their studies. In comparison with other alumni, the engineeringgraduates assessed that their university education helped them develop significantly betterproblem-solving skills, critical thinking, self- evaluation skills, ability to develop new ideas andsolutions and leadership skills and obtained significantly less entrepreneurial and financialknowledge during their studies. However, in case of engineering alumni, entrepreneurshipeducation did not have significant impact on their entrepreneurial activities and assessments ofcompetences, thus indicating that other factors are in play.