The Teaching and Practice of Entrepreneurship within Canadian Higher Education Institutions

3. Key Findings

Overall, the survey shows Canadian higher education institutions are actively involved in offering entrepreneurship education as well as in providing a network of practitioners and the necessary facilities to support students interested in entrepreneurship.

The findings of the report illustrate that institutions are active in providing support for entrepreneurship on campus. In the 2007 – 2008 academic year, 98 percent of the surveyed institutions offered at least one undergraduate course in entrepreneurship, and 23 percent of institutions offered one or more degree programs in entrepreneurship (irrespective of study level). Furthermore, 80 percent of institutions offered entrepreneurship extracurricular activities, such as seminars/workshops, business plan/venture capital competitions and mentoring/coaching. However, overall enrolment levels suggest that entrepreneurship is a specialized discipline. Amongst the institutions, 2.5 percent of students completed an entrepreneurship courses, and 2.1 percent participated in entrepreneurship extracurricular activities.

The survey also identifies two areas of concern. The first relates to student access to entrepreneurship education. Entrepreneurship is an activity that is applicable and relevant to students in all disciplines who are interested in starting a business. However, having an overall objective to deliver entrepreneurship education within an institution was absent in over two thirds of responding institutions. In most cases, entrepreneurship education was offered in only one or two (principally business and engineering) faculties. While institutions do make efforts to motivate and support entrepreneurship opportunities on campus, less than one third of surveyed institutions had an objective to deliver entrepreneurship opportunities to students in all faculties.

The second area of concern refers to the mechanisms within the entrepreneurship education framework to generate economic benefits. Specifically, these concerns relate to the limited and sporadic support for early-stage business ventures and the availability (or lack thereof) of other methods of knowledge transfer to society.

Approximately 200 ventures were created in 2007–2008 amongst the surveyed institutions, and the survey does demonstrate the presence of support for these ventures. However, there are gaps and inconsistencies in this overall system of support. Eighty percent of institutions indicated that a significant number of graduates had shown an interest in entrepreneurship education by participating in business plan competitions, incubators and internships, yet 40 percent of institutions did not have external links to investors, half did not have links to professional service providers and over 75 percent did not have any incubators to support the new ventures of interested entrepreneurs. In contrast, the more popular mechanisms used to support commercialization were technology transfer offices and consultancy work. These gaps in the overall system of support may limit the long-term benefit from entrepreneurial activities within Canadian educational institutions.

Overall findings from the survey show that Canadian institutions performed well in certain areas within the framework. However, evidence indicates that such efforts are often fragmentary. The purpose of this report, therefore, is to contribute new information and initiate discussion on the role of universities and colleges in entrepreneurship education and support.