A Study On Theories And Practices Of Entrepreneurship Education In China's Universities

Entrepreneurship education is an exploring educational activity, which enables educatees to innovate, develop or expand in the socioeconomic, cultural and political fields, and also provide opportunities to others and the society. The United States, as a representative in entrepreneurship education, is at its mature stage. The symbolic characteristics are: entrepreneurship education logos are prevalent, systematized education, teaching and practices are completed, generations of entrepreneurial talents have graduated from universities and gained remarkable achievements. Entrepreneurship education in China is at its early stage. The researchers are in the middle of the transition from analysis of concepts, discussion of origins, and demonstration of significance to the discussion of principles, means, paths and patterns of educational, pedagogical and practical system construction.Presently, main factors restraining the development of entrepreneurship education in China include the followings:"entrepreneurship education"is confined to entrepreneurial management and its categorization is not defined, educational resources are scarce, the"spiritualism paradigm"of entrepreneurship education and the rules of practices are not born yet. To change the lagging situation rapidly, awareness exaltation and ideology arousal are needed first. Investigation, coordination and generalization of concepts, logos, and practice models of entrepreneurship education in China's universities are required immediately.Entrepreneurship education originates from the intergrowth and evolution of university educational values, in which knowledge, individual and society are basis. In particular, the educational view of American Pragmatism represented by Dewey resulted the prosperity of entrepreneurship education in American. Under the promotion of the Ministry of Education and the increasing pressure of severe social employment situation, entrepreneurship education in China's universities is at perceptual stage of cognition. The ideas of entrepreneurship education are emerging following the divisional and combinational path of transformation from knowledge to ability-orientated education, from employment to career education, and from innovation to entrepreneurship education.The logos of entrepreneurship education originate from its concepts. The logos not only reflect the ideals, pursuits, and beliefs of entrepreneurship education, which are the most stable and core elements, but also reveal the internal logic, ultimate value and ideal pursuits of entrepreneurship education. Furthermore, the logos must answer two questions: the realistic question of"what is entrepreneurship education?"and the intrinsic question of"what is entrepreneurship education for?"According to the logos of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Hegel and the advanced teaching theory of Humboldt, Newman, Eliot, Huxley, Hutchins, and Kerr, along with the transformation logic of entrepreneurship education from perceptual stage of cognition to knowability and from knowability to rationality, the"essential research points"of the logos of entrepreneurship education are as the followings:"spiritualism paradigm"of subject arousal as inner core,"epistemology structure"of subject cultivation as intermediary, and"ethological requirement"of subject realization as object. These three elements constitute the main stream of logos of entrepreneurship education. Among other things,"spiritualism paradigm"answers the value of entrepreneurship and is"inevitable explanation"to entrepreneurship education."Epistemology structure"and"spiritualism paradigm"together with"ethological requirement"jointly provide the necessary knowledge required by entrepreneurs and is"solid insight"of entrepreneurship education. The engagement of"ethological requirement"and"spiritualism paradigm"provides"reasonable pursuits"for the realization of entrepreneurs'dreams. However, in the higher education, personal value and social value, pragmatism and the constructivism of ethnology form a"buffer zone"of the system of logos.The value of studying the logos of entrepreneurship education is to direct cultivation of entrepreneurial talents, and for entrepreneurs to achieve their own free development and progress of the overall society. Therefore, the study puts forward the activity and quality goal of entrepreneurship education, establishes penetrable, popular, important, and professional curriculum and practice requirements, and investigates safeguard mechanism of entrepreneurship education implemented by the government and the university, and"trinity"evaluation system of government, university, and society. Based on characteristics of research, teaching, and vocational education universities, the study proposed three entrepreneurship education models with different emphasis, and associated selection of courses and projects. The three models are"conducting entrepreneurial research and entrepreneurship education based on fundamental research and inter-discipline education","starting with teaching mature knowledge, improving entrepreneurship education knowledge and ability–orientated education through entrepreneur daring education", and"promoting skills of entrepreneurship education in specialized fields by combining basic knowledge of specialize fields, individual technology accomplishment and professional ethics along with entrepreneur daring education". The study also indicates that for research-type university, the objective of entrepreneurship education is to industrialize entrepreneurial projects and establish a national innovative system. For teaching-type university, the goal is to marketwise entrepreneurial projects and promote the development of regional economy. And for vocational-type university, the objective is to enable entrepreneurial projects running like enterprise and stimulate the community prosperity.The presentation and exploration of entrepreneurship education are inner demand of university development. It impels universities transforming form knowledge production to knowledge application and is a realistic mode for university education to move towards the society. Practices of entrepreneurship education are the objective requirements of epoch and society development. For universities in China, in order to keep one's leading position during the current rapid social transformation, it has to have institutional innovation as premise, have knowledge and technology innovation as power, solve key problems of social development as responsibility, and cultivate a large number of entrepreneurs as objective. Universities in China should through curricular integration, knowledge capitalization, and their own implementation of entrepreneurship to construct entrepreneurial universities, gain the market recognition and realize the dreams of entrepreneurial universities.