Experiences from participation in JA-YE Company Programmes

Junior Achievement – Young Enterprise Europe (JA-YE) is a not-for-profit association based in Belgium. JA-YE brings the public and private sectors together to provide young people in primary and secondary schools and early university with high-quality education programmes to teach them about enterprise, entrepreneurship, business and economics in a practical way. JA-YE is Europe’s largest provider of enterprise education programmes, reaching 2,2 million students in 40 countries in 2006. The JA-YE Company Programme gives students in Upper secondary school the opportunity to run their own company, giving them an insight into how to set up a business. The report “Experiences from participation in JA-YE Company Programmes” is based on a quantitative study of former participants from these 6 countries: Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Romania and the Slovak Republic. The data used was collected through internet-based questionnaires. In addition to conducting the quantitative study in the 6 countries mentioned above, we consolidate and/or compare particular results of similar studies from Norway in 2005 and 2006 wherever we find it relevant and appropriate. 4 research questions are raised: a) Do the respondents recommend participation in CP to other students? b) Do entrepreneurial skills develop through CP? c) What do the participants think about CP as an educational method? and d) Does CP lead to more business start-ups?