The Fellowship of Enterprise Educators

As I mentioned in my previous blog, in 2011 USE awarded me funding to attend the International Entrepreneurship Educators Programme (IEEP), a course which lasted 18 months and introduced me to the exciting world of enterprise and entrepreneurship education.

Last week, after an intensive period when I had to write and submit my final dissertation for the course, I received my results. I was thrilled not only because I managed to get a good mark on my dissertation but most of all, because I was awarded the IEEP Fellowship as a result of my successful completion of the course. Together with my peers (we were 12 in our cohort) we entered the fellowship of enterprise educators. This is much more than a title: it marks my gradual  transformation from educator to enterprise and entrepreneurship educator. I am now, officially, an enterprise educator, and the IEEP (and USE) gave me the opportunity to meet and liaise with enterprise educators from around the UK. From them I found out that our problems are similar, but that together, sharing a large pool of knowledge and enterprise education methodologies, we can indeed make a change in the ways in which we teach our students and construct our modules.

Now, the next step is to complete the MA in Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Education at Coventry University and get an even more in-depth knowledge of the theoretical foundations of enterprise education. I strongly believe that this theoretical basis will provide another strong justification of the importance and legitimacy of enterprise education in HE.

May the fellowship grow at the University of Sheffield as well!