Entrepreneurship Education And Innovative Intentions: Consequences For Higher Secondary School Students

Abstract

Entrepreneurship education in India has gained relevance in today‘s context. Education in the area of entrepreneurship may help people to develop skills and knowledge, which could benefit them for starting, organizing and managing their own enterprises and result in solving unemployment problem in India. Currently, high unemployment levels co-exist with increased difficulties in filling the vacancies. The employability of the youth is threatened by labour market mismatches namely inadequate skills, limited geographic motilities and inadequate wages. Our current education system needs support, if it is going adopt such challenges. The entrepreneurship education is the need of hour as it focuses on soft core skills including problem solving, team building and transversal competencies such as willing to learn social and civic competence, initiative taking and cultural awareness. To create more entrepreneurs in future, it is essential to develop a culture in our schools where entrepreneurial learning is pervasive.

According to Fifth Annual Employment and Unemployment Survey (2015-16) Tamil Nadu ranked 22^nd place in terms of Unemployment. It is reported on the unemployment rate in Tamil Nadu is 5.9 per cent in May 2017. Even though the level of education in Tamil Nadu is higher, there is growing unemployment especially among the educated youth who look for white collar Jobs. In this environment, the current study aims to create awareness among the students of higher secondary schools students about entrepreneurship and conduct training programmes to develop the entrepreneurial attitude and intension to increase the alertness and risk-taking skills required to pursue entrepreneurial careers among the higher secondary school students. This study helped the students to prepare themselves to start new creative venture/business with innovative skills. In this context, it is anticipated to that the current study on entrepreneurship education among the higher secondary school students in Coimbatore may motivate them in implementing effectively the central government policies namely Start-up-India and Make-in-India in future. The research study is conducted among the higher secondary school students of 204 select Schools.