Session 1 - 11th April 05 11.55 – 12.45

Title of Presentation:        MSc Entrepreneurship (Female Entrepreneurs): Personal, Professional and Business Development

Presenter:                            Elizabeth J. Muir

Organisation:                      Welsh Enterprise Institute

                                              University of Glamorgan

Summary:

The presentation is an account of good practice and explores the challenges and outcomes of establishing a full-time, master’s degree courses designed specifically for women as potential of practising entrepreneurs. The European Social Fund, Objective 1, partially funded project comprises 7 taught modules (awarding 120 Credits) and a 60 credit dissertation. Key areas discussed include the decision to establish a ‘for’ entrepreneurship course at postgraduate level; engaging with debates on ‘about’ and ‘for’ entrepreneurship education, development needs of potential and practising entrepreneuses and notions of ‘success’ in enterprise education. The traditional academic perspective measures competence in terms of knowledge and understanding of the subject together with demonstration of academic skills such as critical analysis and debate. The first theme examines the tensions between this, where entrepreneurship is the subject, and the notion of learning ‘for’ entrepreneurship whereby the student is enables to develop the knowledge and skills to effectively start and develop their own business. Herein lies the challenge of transforming such learning so that it is validated as appropriate for master’s level academic awards. The second theme extends the feminist debates on women-only education into the field of entrepreneurship education by examining the availability of relevant material, selection of suitable educators and the contribution of women’s experience. Thirdly a tentative model of ‘success’ is developed which goes beyond the academic norms of student numbers, completion rates and quality of awards and is inclusive of benchmarks such as commitment to life-long learning, student experience and economic development issues such as business establishment and employment created.

Evaluation of the good practice of the course has resulted from analysis of conversations with individual students, student questionnaires and discussions between those delivering the programme over two cohorts of students. These cohorts started in February 2002 and January 2003 and those who completed were awarded their degrees in the summers of 2203 and 2004 respectively.

The presentation concludes that entrepreneurship education needs to consider the personal, professional and business development of individual students. This occurs in two ways: firstly that the design and delivery of the course should take into account the cultural and experiential capital of potential students and this has implications for targeting courses. Secondly, the course content and assessment should be flexible enough to enable the entrepreneurial aspirations of individual students to be achieved, without compromising academic standards.