CONCLUSION

Recent events highlight the value of teaching young people to be resilient and adaptable. Across the world, industries have faced unprecedented disruption and businesses have been forced to adapt. As economies recover, it will be reliant on entrepreneurs to create new enterprises and employment. In some cases, workers may be forced to retrain and change careers. Yet there has long been a need for education systems across the world to produce resilient and adaptable graduates.

Through entrepreneurship education, we can teach young people the skills to adapt as the world undergoes rapid economic change. But many young people lack the opportunity to learn about how to start and run a business. By expanding access to entrepreneurship education, we will not only support the next generation of founders and job creators, but also teach young people the mindset and skills they need to thrive in the modern economy.

Entrepreneurship education has typically taken place in universities and business schools, yet there is a strong case for acting earlier. The mental traits that are often a prerequisite to entrepreneurial success can be influenced in pupils as young as eleven. The challenge now is to ensure more young people can access high-quality programmes proven to develop those traits.

Across the world, hundreds of millions of young people express a desire to start a business, yet many are held back by a lack of confidence and information. By expanding access to entrepreneurship education in secondary schools across the Commonwealth, many more of them can fulfil their ambitions of becoming founders.