Experts: Unique courses needed for entrepreneurs

A student tries out a brain-controlled wheelchair at the School of Information Science and Engineering at Shanghai-based East China University of Science and Technology in May. LIU YING/XINHUA

China should accelerate the development of entrepreneurship education by setting up entrepreneurship universities to meet the growing demand for higher-level innovation and entrepreneurship, experts said.

The importance of entrepreneurship has been widely recognized. Leonard Schlesinger, former president of Babson College, a college in the United States specializing in entrepreneurship education, said entrepreneurship is the most powerful force supporting economic transformation.

In China, such activities have been robust since Premier Li Keqiang called for mass innovation and entrepreneurship by the people of the country at the 2014 Summer Davos Forum in Tianjin.

According to Wang Huiyao, president of Center of China and Globalization, a think tank in Beijing, the number of startups in Zhongguancun - a tech hub in Beijing dubbed as "China's Silicon Valley" - has reached a record-high of 9,000.

However, entrepreneurship education, which the United Nations Education Science and Culture Organization calls the third passport of education beyond academic and vocational training, hasn't received enough attention. Many people who intend to start or have started their own businesses need help, Wang said.

Some efforts have been made to promote entrepreneurship in China. The Ministry of Education announced a pilot effort to open entrepreneurship courses at nine universities in 2002, including Tsinghua and Beihang universities. In 2013, China's first entrepreneurship university was established in Qingdao, Shandong province.

But Wang said there's still much to be done. He particularly recommended that China learn from and cooperate with countries that have done very well in this regard - for example, the US, which possesses a world-leading position in innovation; and Germany, which has a tradition of connecting education in school with real-life production practices.

"We expect to see more universities specializing in entrepreneurship jointly set up by China and other countries," Wang said.

Schlesinger noted that Babson College has been ranked No 1 in entrepreneurship by U.S. News & World Report for about two decades, offering degrees on entrepreneurship to both undergraduates and graduates. Students are also encouraged to take part in clubs and contests, he said.

Stefan Stein, president of Business and Information Technology School in Germany, said turning students into entrepreneurs is part of the curriculum.

In their courses, students are asked to work in teams to come up with commercial ideas and turn the ideas into practice under the guidance of full-time faculty, as well as part-time teachers who will be served by successful entrepreneurs, Stein said.

Wang said internationalized entrepreneurship education will not only nurture a batch of globally competitive entrepreneurs but will also attract entrepreneurs from across the world to start up businesses in China.

While some voices say the best entrepreneurs are not nurtured at schools, Wang Chaoyong, founder and CEO of ChinaEquity Group, a venture capital investment institution in China, said such education is still necessary for most entrepreneurs who start up small or medium-sized enterprises.

"Mastering some common and basic knowledge about entrepreneurship can reduce risk and add to the possibility of success," he said. "It can help the entrepreneurs to go further."