"We began this process nearly a year ago and are frankly surprised that the employers and employees are in agreement on the value of the country having a more 'entrepreneurial workforce,'" said Jack Kosakowski, President of Junior Achievement USA, which sponsored the Gallup poll as part of its Junior Achievement Innovation Initiative. "We also could not anticipate that the new Administration would be making entrepreneurship a priority as part of its agenda for education, which we believe opens the door for a new way of thinking about workforce development in this country."
During his March 10th speech on education to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Washington, DC, President Barack Obama called on the nation's governors and state education chiefs to "develop standards and assessments that don't simply measure whether students can fill in a bubble on a test, but whether they possess 21st century skills like problem-solving and critical thinking and entrepreneurship and creativity."
"The world of work is changing rapidly and our workforce needs to adapt quickly to an environment where adding skills and retraining will be key," said Jonas Prising, President of The Americas, Manpower, Inc. "There is a feeling in the American workplace that the country needs to do things differently to compete in the global marketplace. This requires workers to be more innovative but also our government, business leaders and educational facilities need to take action together to ensure workers and students are being enticed to participate and stay involved. The challenge is, how do we get there from here?"
To help address the question of how America's education system can change to foster a more "entrepreneurial workforce," Junior Achievement formed the Junior Achievement Innovation Initiative. The goal of the Initiative is to conduct research and then incorporate the best thinking of business leaders, workforce development organizations and educators to develop an action plan that Junior Achievement and other organizations can follow to help develop an "entrepreneurial workforce." Recommended actions from this Initiative include:
- Encourage the concept of filling the "Motivation Gap" with entrepreneurial and experiential learning models that are delivered through schools.
- Use additional research to determine if the promotion of self-motivation can lead to greater demand for a more rigorous and relevant curriculum from schools.
- Help key stakeholders recognize that motivation and mentorship are critical to success of all young people.
- Recognize that both hard skills and life skills are required by an individual to be become marketable and successful.
- Help young people to "learn to learn" and "learn to navigate" our existing education and workforce development systems to obtain those skills they will need to succeed.
