ENTREPRENEURSHIP COMPETENCES FOR ICT STUDENTS: LATVIAN AND KAZAKH CASE STUDIES

Abstract

There is an evidence that students, especially non-business students, lack of entrepreneurial skills. The importance of entrepreneurship education has been frequently debated in the academic environment. However, the question is about competences that should be developed and their relevance to the market demand. The current research was conducted within the framework of the international project “Accelerating ICT students’ start-up development competence via interdisciplinary modular courses in the HEI curricula” supported by the Erasmus+ programme “Capacity Building for Higher Education”. The goal of the research is to evaluate the perceived importance of entrepreneurship competences for the future career of students of ICT-related study programmes in Latvia and Kazakhstan. 119 students and 31 staff members participated in the survey. List of competences offered for evaluation was created based on the EU Entrepreneurship Competence Framework, as well as on the learning outcomes defined in the Master’s study programmes in Entrepreneurship at Cambridge University and Amsterdam Business School. Data was processed by means of frequency analysis and ranking. The difference between respondent groups was tested by Mann-Whitney U test. The internal consistency of the scale was analysed by calculating Cronbach alpha. The most important entrepreneurship competences on the viewpoint of ICT students are “Seeing opportunities”, “Real life problem solving based thinking” and “Research skills”. Staff members have the priority to “Generation of creative ideas”, “Self-awareness and self-efficacy”, “Motivation and perseverance”, and “Thinking based on real-life problems solving based thinking problems".