Enterpreneurship Education: A Life Skills Approach
Udin Supriadi, Saepul Anwar and Toto Suryana
Program Studi Ilmu Pendidikan Agama Islam, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Jl. Dr. Setiabudhi No.228, Bandung,
Indonesia
Keywords: 21st Century Skills, Business Incubator, Model of Entrepreneur Training.
Abstract: This paper, describes one of the entrepreneurship education approach for higher education which is being
developed. This model called Life Skill-Based Entrepreneurship Education which is held in the form of
course subject and training. The main goal of the model is to cultivate entrepreneurial attitudes as well as to
train entrepreneurial skills as an effort to increase students’ interest toward entrepreneurship. The coaching
process is conducted in three stages, those are (1) the stage of introducing the values of entrepreneurship
(knowing entrepreneurial skills), (2) the stage of learning the entrepreneurship values through the role-
model entrepreneur (learning entrepreneurial skills), and (3) the stage of implementing the entrepreneurial
skills. As a result of those stages, most of students have showed their passion in entrepreneurship during the
process till the end of the program. Therefore, we argue that this model can be adopted generally as a Model
for entrepreneurship education in higher education.
1 INTRODUCTION
The entrepreneurship education program has
attracted global attention. In fact, there are many
studies about the entrepreneurship education
program. Based on the result of those studies there
are some important findings that we would like to
mention, those are:
First, the entrepreneurial skill is a skill that can
be learned through an education program. Therefore,
there are many parties interested in developing
entrepreneurship education program. On the top of
that, in certain context, many countries are trying to
push their higher education institution to seriously
transform their institutional form from a traditional
research university to entrepreneurial university
(Chang, et al., 2016) which is not limited to only
developing the entrepreneurship education program.
Second, the entrepreneurial skills are an
important skill to be possessed by the students,
especially for those at the higher education level. In
the long term, the outcome of entrepreneurship
education is to improve the number of economic
growth of a country as well as to solve the
unemployment issues by the emersion of new
ventures initiated by young entrepreneurs-college
graduates (Sondari, 2014; Stamboulis & Barlas,
2014; Dina, et al., 2016). That is because of the
college students’ participation in the
entrepreneurship education may increase their
interest to be an entrepreneur (Küttima, et al., 2014).
Third, the objective of the entrepreneurship
education is to develop the entrepreneurial skill as
an effort to elevate students’ entrepreneurial
intention. There are two types of skills developed
during the entrepreneurship education program: (1)
soft skills (non-cognitive entrepreneurial skills), in
the form of: risk taking propensity, self-efficacy,
creativity, etc.; and (2) hard skills (cognitive
entrepreneurial skills), in the form of: creating and
evaluating business plan, product marketing, etc.
Between those two skills, it is recommended for the
students’ to learn more about hard skills rather than
soft skills (Moberg, 2014). However, for elementary
level, based on the evaluative study conducted by
Huber, Sloof and Praag (2014), the entrepreneurship
education program has more positive effects toward
the students’ soft skills of entrepreneurship such as
risk taking propensity, self-efficacy, creativity, etc.
compared to their hard skills of entrepreneurship.
In Indonesia, the entrepreneurship education has
been developed since 2009 as an effort to reduce the
level of unemployment for college graduates and to
increase the number of entrepreneurs because on
2016/2017 period , based on the report of The
Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (2017), the
Supriadi, U., Anwar, S. and Suryana, T.
Enterpreneurship Education: A Life Skills Approach.
In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Islamic Economics, Business, and Philanthropy (ICIEBP 2017) - Transforming Islamic Economy and Societies, pages 663-667
ISBN: 978-989-758-315-5
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
663

number of entrepreneur in Indonesia was only 0,7%
from the total population of the country. Meanwhile,
the data from The Central Bureau of Statistics of
Indonesia (2017) shows that although at the end of
February 2017 the number of unemployment in
Indonesia were decreasing up to 200.000 people
compared to August 2016, the number of
unemployed college graduates in Indonesia were
also increasing to 70.000 people compared to
August 2016. Overall, the college graduates were
accounted for 12% of the total unemployment at the
end of February 2017. Based on those facts, starting
from 2013, particularly for the higher education
curriculum, The Ministry of Education added the
entrepreneurship course as one of the general
education course (Direktorat Jenderal Pembelajaran
dan Kemahasiswaan, 2013). The entrepreneurship
course was developed with the mission to cultivate
entrepreneurial character to the students and equip
them with the soft skill and hard skill in order to
utilize and create opportunity to be an entrepreneur,
either after the graduation or during the school. As
for the development of the entrepreneurship
education model, The Ministry of Education handed
over the decision to each institution entirely.
Related to the previous statement, this paper
describes one of the entrepreneurship education
model developed by the authors in The Islamic
Religious Education Study Program (IPAI), Faculty
of Social Sciences Education, Universitas
Pendidikan Indonesia. The entrepreneurship
education program is developed in the form of
lecturing and training.
Entrepreneurship education in the form of
lecturing was conducted through Basic Life Skills
(BLS) I and II course in The Islamic Religious
Education Study Program (IPAI) batch 2016 with 98
participants who were divided into 18 groups. The
BLS 1 course was given during the short semester
after the second semester, and the BLS 2 course was
given to the students during the third semester.
Meanwhile, the entrepreneurship education in the
form of training of entrepreneurship involved three
students’ representatives from the 2016 batch for
each department in FPIPS except from IPAI
department. The total of the participants were 30
students’ which was divided into 10 groups. The
training session was conducted for 5 days in the
classroom and 1 month outside the classroom.
The entrepreneurship education program we
currently develop is named “the life skills-based
entrepreneurship education approach”. This program
was implemented in the form of entrepreneurship
lecturing and training. At the end of the lecturing
and training, most of the participant shows positive
attitude toward entrepreneurship.
2 METHODS
The main focus of this paper is to explore how to
increase students’ interest toward entrepreneurship
(entrepreneurial intention) through the life skills-
based entrepreneurship education. The three stages
of coaching, knowing entrepreneurship, learning
entrepreneurship, and being entrepreneur are
described systematically. Based on that, the
qualitative approach with descriptive method is
applied (Creswell, 2012). Using the approach, we
aim to naturally illustrate the process of
entrepreneurship education during the lecturing and
training sessions. The collection of the data was
conducted through participant observations where
the researcher acted as the lecturer and trainer who
has designed and developed the life skills-based
entrepreneurship education model (Gay, et al.,
2009). Next, the collected data will be presented and
analyzed descriptively.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Generally, the entrepreneurship education training
program, both in the form of lecturing or training, is
including the coaching of cognitive entrepreneurial
skills and non-cognitive entrepreneurial skills. The
coaching process is conducted in three stages, those
are (1) the stage of introducing the values of
entrepreneurship (knowing entrepreneurial skills),
(2) the stage of learning the entrepreneurship values
through the role-model entrepreneur (learning
entrepreneurial skills), and (3) the stage of
implementing the entrepreneurial skills. The
following sub-chapters are the brief explanation for
each stages.
3.1 Knowing Entrepreneurial Skills
The first stage of the entrepreneurship training
program is introducing the entrepreneurial skills.
Those skills are soft skills (non-cognitive
entrepreneurial skills) and hard skills (cognitive
entrepreneurial skills). Both of them are divided into
five main entrepreneurial competencies (Lans, et al.,
2017), they are (1) opportunity competence, (2)
social competence, (3) entrepreneurial self-efficacy,
ICIEBP 2017 - 1st International Conference on Islamic Economics, Business and Philanthropy
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(4) business competence, and (5) industry-specific
competence (see table 1).
The first three competencies related to non-
cognitive entrepreneurial skills. The first
competency introduced to the students was the
opportunity competence. This competence is related
to the ability to create opportunity. To be able to
acquire those three skills the students’ were
introduced to three main materials; they are (1) Self-
adaptation to habituate oneself of positive thinking
and risk-taking, (2) self-management and potential
management; and (3) finding and maximizing the
learning skills. Furthermore, the second competency
is known as social competence. It is about the ability
of someone to build the chain of networking. This
competency was introduced through three main
materials; they are (1) communication skills, (2)
negotiation skills and (3) social skills. Next, the third
competency is known as entrepreneurial self-
efficacy is the ability of someone to positively think
himself/herself as an entrepreneur. This ability is
introduced by these materials: (1) self-image, self-
ideal, and self-esteem, (2) spiritual skills, and (3)
introducing the characteristics of an entrepreneur.
On the other hand, the last two competencies are
related to the cognitive entrepreneurial skills. The
first competency is business competence, it is about
the ability of an entrepreneur to create and manage
his/her business. Business plan development,
managerial skills, and financial planning are three
materials developed to introduce this competency.
Meanwhile, the industry-specific competence as the
last competency is introduced by two main
materials, they are (1) product and brand
differentiation and (2) selling skills. This
competency is about the ability of an entrepreneur to
develop and sell the product.
Table 1: Entrepreneurial Competencies.
Competences Course Topics Kind
Opportunity
competence
- Positive thinking
- Potential management
-
L
earning skills
Non-
cognitive
skills
Social
competence
- Communication skills
- Negotiation skills
- Socia
l
s
kills
Entrepreneurial
self-efficacy
- Self-concept
- Spiritual skills
- Entrepreneurial skills
Business
competence
- Business plan
- Managerial skills
-
F
inancial self-concep
t
Cognitive
Skills
Industry-specific
competence
- Product, Differentiation,
and Brand
- Selling skills
This stage was given to all of the students, either
for those who were participating in the
entrepreneurship education program in the form of
lecturing or training. During the lecturing program
there were fourteen sessions of classroom meeting
for BLS I course and seven sessions of classroom
meeting for BLS II course. While during the training
program there were four to five training days with 6-
7 hours of training session for each day.
The outcome of this first stage is that each of the
students was able to identify the characteristics and
skills of an entrepreneur. On the next stage, based on
those characteristics and skills, they were able to
identify themselves as an entrepreneur. According to
Donnellon, et al., (2014), the developmental process
of the entrepreneurship identity is important as a part
of the process to develop students’ entrepreneurial
competencies as well as their knowledge and skills
development of the entrepreneurship.
3.2 Learning Entrepreneurial Skills
After the students are able to identify the
characteristics and skills of an entrepreneur on the
first stage, then on this stage they will be showed
directly to the implementation of those
characteristics and skills. Therefore, the second
stage of the entrepreneurship education is a stage
where the students’ learn about the value of
entrepreneurship through role-models entrepreneur.
This stage, either in the form of lecturing or training,
was given in the form of: (1) structured assignment;
and (2) entrepreneur coaching. In particular, in the
form of classroom lecturing both of them were
delivered during BLS II course.
The structured assignment was done by the
groups of students consist of five to six persons for
each group. Each of those groups was given three
structured assignment, they were (1) conducting
business management observation, (2) conducting
interviews and creating profile of business owner,
and (3) making business plan. The first two task was
conducted during this stage, whilst the last task,
which is making business plan, would be conducted
on the next stage.
Figure 1: Students’ are given entrepreneurship coaching
from the owner of convection, photocopy, and restaurant
business.
Enterpreneurship Education: A Life Skills Approach
665

Meanwhile the entrepreneurship coaching
activity was conducted once by inviting an
entrepreneur as a guest lecture to share his
experiences in building and managing business (see
figure 1).
During this stage each of the students’ groups
were asked to generate two main products, they are
(1) the observation report and the interview report
with at least three entrepreneurs; and (2) the profile
of those entrepreneurs in the form of video recording
with 7-10 minutes duration for each video.
3.3 Implementing Entrepreneurial
Skills
In the third stage of the life skill-based
entrepreneurship program, the students were
challenged to implement the entrepreneurship skills
which they have learned previously during the first
stage, and see how they were implemented during
the second stage. The main objective of the third
stage is to provide direct experience to the students
on how to build and manage a business.
There are two main activities on this stage, those
are (1) compelling business plan, and (2) business
managing practice. Both of those activities were the
structured activity of the BLS II course which was
conducted collaboratively by the students in the
groups consists of five-six students.
Each of the groups assigned to formulate and
develop the business idea along with the business
concept which was assembled as a business plan.
The business idea developed can take the form of
service or product. Next, after they have done
compelling the business plan, each of the groups can
start to manage their business.
The business managing activities was starting
from the production process, packaging, and product
marketing to the consumer (see figure 2). This
activity was held for two months and ended by
evaluating their business together with the lecture.
Figure 2: One group of students is in the process of
production of cassava-based business type with Delica
Chips as a brand name.
During this stage each of the groups was asked to
produce two main products, they were (1) business
plan document; and (2) the report of the group
business development. The first product was given
on the fourth meeting while the second product was
given on the last meeting of BSL II course.
According to the result of the evaluative study
towards the implementation of entrepreneurship
education which has been conducted by researchers,
some of them are Warhuus and Basaiawmoit (2014),
and Robinson and Shumar (2014) this step is very
important in every entrepreneurship education.
Another researcher like Bell (2015) reinforces this
notion. He highlighted the importance of giving
students’ direct experience in managing business.
Meanwhile, there are many entrepreneurship
education programs that were not able to provide
such experience. Therefore, even though the
students’ interest toward entrepreneurship is high, in
the end it was not enough to push students’ to be an
entrepreneur after they graduated. On that basis,
although the goal of entrepreneurship education is to
encourage entrepreneurial intention of the student, as
Walter and Block (2016) stated, it should be able to
get them interested in becoming entrepreneurs after
graduating (Premand, et al., 2016). The goal needs
to be achieved as an effort to reduce the number of
unemployed.
4 CONCLUSIONS
Related to the entrepreneurship education, this paper
emphasizes three important notes. First, the main
objective of the entrepreneurship education in the
higher education is not only limited to transfer the
knowledge about entrepreneurship, but also cultivate
the entrepreneurship students’ mindset through the
internalization of the entrepreneurial values. Second,
the internalization of entrepreneurial values on the
life skills-based entrepreneurship are conducted on
three stages (1) the stage of introducing the values of
entrepreneurship (knowing entrepreneurial skills),
(2) the stage of learning the entrepreneurship values
through the role-model entrepreneur (learning
entrepreneurial skills), and (3) the stage of
implementing the entrepreneurial skills. Third, the
outcome of those three stages is to cultivate
entrepreneurial attitudes as well as to train
entrepreneurial skills as an effort to increase
students’ interest toward entrepreneurship.
ICIEBP 2017 - 1st International Conference on Islamic Economics, Business and Philanthropy
666

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
On this occasion we would like to thank: (1)
Indonesia University of Education, through The
Institution of Research and Community Service that
has provided this research with sufficient research
grant to develop a study about the life skills-based
entrepreneurship education on the higher education
institution, (2) Islamic Religious Education Program
of The Faculty of Social Sciences Education of
Indonesia University of Education as a partner in
developing life skills-based entrepreneurship
education in the form of entrepreneurship training
for the students’ of The Faculty of Social Sciences
Education (FPIPS) UPI 2016.
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