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Pilot project from entrepreneurship competition to entrepreneurship education

21 July, 2015 - 11:51

The entrepreneurship education of university students started in the early 1980s in the United States, and was introduced to China in the form of entrepreneurship competition in the late 1990s. In May 1998, Tsinghua University and a Shanghai magazine successfully combined with several universities to hold the first Tsinghua Business Plan Competition and introduce it into domestic university campuses. With the sponsorship of the Communist Youth League, the China Association for Science and Technology, and the All-China Students Federation, the first “Challenge Cup” Chinese University Student Business Plan Competition was held by Tsinghua University in 1999, establishing its reputation. Nearly 400 works from more than 120 universities were brought together by the competition, initiating an upsurge of innovation and entrepreneurship throughout the universities nationwide, and having a broad impact on society.

Along with the nationwide spread of the business plan competition, university teaching activity had more and more to do with business plan competition counselling, entrepreneurship courses, and entrepreneurial talents training. The Ministry of Education launched the pilot work of entrepreneurship education in April 2002, which at first had nine selected universities as follows: Tsinghua University, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Heilongjiang University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Nanjing University of Finance and Economics, Wuhan University, Xi’an Jiao Tong University, and North-western Polytechnic University. There is also exploration of entrepreneurship education suitable to our nation’s situation, which is through an entrepreneurship education pilot to encourage universities to practice entrepreneurship education in various ways. As a result of an entrepreneurship education pilot of nearly 10 years’ duration, Chinese universities have achieved the transition from active entrepreneurship competitions to initiative entrepreneurship education, as well as a beneficial exploration of the pattern of entrepreneurship education — not only forming diverse entrepreneurship educational schemes at typical pilot universities, but also forming distinctive ones at non-pilot universities, laying the foundation for the widespread use of entrepreneurship education throughout the country.