Author(s): Mindaugas Kiskis, Auste Kiskiene
The paper presents a perspective on the decline in entrepreneurship in the US and the EU in view of the rapid growth trend in the entrepreneurship education. The basic goal of the entrepreneurship education is to promote entrepreneurship and while the entrepreneurship education has exploded parabolically, yet empirical research on the state of entrepreneurship in the entrepreneurship education pioneering regions shows significant slowdown over last decades. The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the incompatibility of the macro data and to delineate the framework of possible solutions. We survey long term longitudinal studies of entrepreneurship as well as country level data supporting decline in entrepreneurship and critically assess the disparity with the shorter-term statistical entrepreneurship measurement data, which may be tainted by policy biases and misrepresentations. The former data is irreconcilable with the rapid growth in entrepreneurship education, and especially with the data showing exceedingly positive entrepreneurship education outcomes. The disparity urges for critical assessment of the ROI of the entrepreneurship education and especially predominant curriculum, yet it has not been empirically researched. We argue that standardized “Omni ability” driven entrepreneurship education shall give way for context adapted cross disciplinary and cross generational entrepreneurship education with the emphasis on psychological hardening and resilience training on how to deal with and overcome personal failure and daily uncertainties. The COVID-19 crisis and ongoing virtual economy revolution present an opportunity for the critical remolding of entrepreneurship education, as well as for development of robust and objective measurement framework for the state of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education outcomes.