Can Entrepreneurship be educated ?

On January 15th, 2008, I was in panel discussion, under the DEG Symposium http://www.entrepreneurship.org/events.aspx .

The title of the panel discussion was “Entrepreneurship Education “

I had two very experienced entrepreneurship educators, with me as the speaker on the panel. Prof Harkesh Kumar Mittal on behalf of National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board , Government of India and Prof William Scott Green of University of Miami.

Being sometime in Entrepreneurship education , on both online and offline format , I was very eager to ask the question , which I faced many times, while conducting my classes on Entrepreneurship, in Business Schools, earlier in IIM-Calcutta and later in ISB&M Calcutta.

Can Entrepreneurship be educated?

Both agreed, yes it can be.

There was another deeper question , which I ask sometimes to myself , which goes this way.

If ‘Innovation’ is the Key thought and activity surrounding the profession of ‘entrepreneurship’, can a phenomenon as ‘disruptive’ as innovation be created in a structured learning environment ?

I asked this question to both of them .

There reaction was .... that innovation is ‘disruptive’ ,and it is not so easy to create it, in a structured learning environment. However some efforts could be made , that people better understands about innovation and Entrepreneurship. And the most important of it , should be on educating entrepreneurship as a life skill.