Entrepreneurial Education Is Finally Getting the Recognition It Deserves

For the first time in a generation, enrichment is moving firmly into the spotlight and entrepreneurial education is beginning to receive the recognition it has long deserved!

We’re incredibly proud to share that the Young Entrepreneurs Academy Basics of Business: Beginner to Boss programme has been signposted by the Department for Education in its newly launched Enrichment Framework as a recommended resource to support schools in strengthening their enrichment provision.

This marks an important milestone for YEA, but more importantly, it reflects a much bigger shift taking place across the UK education landscape.

Entrepreneurial education is increasingly moving up the national agenda. Recent conversations at 10 Downing Street around youth entrepreneurship and future skills, alongside the publication of the Maple Review calling for a national public-private Business Skills Guarantee for secondary schools, signal a growing recognition that young people need far more than traditional academic knowledge alone to thrive in the future economy.

The question facing educators today is no longer simply how students perform in the classroom. It is how we prepare young people for a future defined by constant change, emerging technologies, and career paths that continue to evolve at unprecedented speed.

The new Enrichment Framework represents an important step forward in ensuring that opportunities beyond the classroom become more accessible to all learners, giving young people the experiences, confidence, and practical skills needed to succeed both in education and beyond.

At YEA, this is what drives our work.

Through the Basics of Business: Beginner to Boss programme, schools and young people can access practical entrepreneurial education completely free of charge. Through short-form digital learning, real entrepreneur stories, interactive activities, quizzes, downloadable resources, and a business plan builder, young people are given direct exposure to real-world business thinking in an engaging and accessible way. Upon completion, learners also have the opportunity to receive a certificate endorsed by UCL School of Management.

What makes entrepreneurial education particularly powerful is the breadth of skills it helps young people develop.

Entrepreneurship sits at the intersection of many of the capabilities increasingly recognised as essential for future success:

• Creative and critical thinking

• Communication and confidence

• Teamwork and leadership

• Financial literacy

• Adaptability and resilience

• Problem-solving with real-world application

  
  

These are no longer optional skills. They are becoming fundamental life skills for the next generation.

As schools continue looking at ways to strengthen their enrichment offer, this moment presents an important opportunity to rethink what meaningful enrichment can look like and to ensure young people are being exposed to experiences that prepare them not simply for exams, but for the realities of the world they will soon enter.

We want every young person, regardless of background, learning style, or circumstance, to have access to opportunities that help them build confidence, develop future-ready skills, and begin thinking differently about what their future can look like.

We’re excited to support more schools and community organisations as they continue expanding access to entrepreneurial education and helping young people develop the mindset needed to thrive in an ever-changing world.

A huge thank you goes to the Enrichment For All steering group for leading this important movement forward, alongside the wider coalition helping shape the future of enrichment across the UK, including our Chair, Paul Herman, and CEO, Lauren Smithie.

This feels like an important moment not just for YEA, but for the future of entrepreneurial education itself.