Students Receive Entrepreneurship Materials

Students across Atlantic Canada will benefit from new entrepreneurship resources in classrooms this fall.

The resources, launched today by the Atlantic Provinces Education Foundation and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA), are designed to help teachers promote entrepreneurship among grade-school students.

The new high-school material for grades 10 through 12, titled Entrepreneurship and the Cultural Industries, links entrepreneurship with the fine arts curriculum.

In the lower grades, the resources are activity-based and can be used to introduce entrepreneurial ideas in many subject areas, from mathematics to music. Titled We Can Do Anything: Learning Through Enterprise, this information is available to anglophone students from Primary through Grade 3, while Connections: Learning through Entrepreneurship Across the Curriculum is available for students in grades 7 through 9.

For francophone students an activity-based teacher's resource, Cap sur l'entrepreneuriat, will help promote entrepreneurial attitudes and skills in grades 4 through 6. This builds on the Coup de main collection, already used by students in Primary through Grade 3.

"Entrepreneurship is a key driver of economic development in Atlantic Canada," said George Baker, Minister of Veterans Affairs and Secretary of State for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. "Entrepreneurship education is essential if we are going to enable our young people to embrace the challenges and opportunities of private enterprise. With these new materials, teachers in the region will be able to help their students further develop entrepreneurship skills and qualities of personal initiative, leadership and self-confidence."

The new resources cost $540,000, of which more than $366,000 was contributed by ACOA. The resources build on earlier English- and French-language entrepreneurship resources developed and funded by ACOA and the departments of education in the Atlantic provinces, and released in 1996.

Judy Foote, Minister of Education in Newfoundland and Labrador, said education is the foundation for the future success of youth and provincial departments of education are incorporating more and more enterprise-education outcomes into the curricula.

"Including the concept of entrepreneurship in students' education plants the idea of starting their own business as a viable option," said Ms. Foote. "We have long recognized the significant contribution of local business to our economy and the vital role today's students will play as future leaders for this region and for Canada in the global economy."

Ms. Foote, representing the Atlantic Provinces Education Foundation, made her comments on behalf of Education Minister Jane Purves in Nova Scotia, Elvy Robichaud in New Brunswick and J. Chester Gillan in Prince Edward Island.

AUX REDACTEURS EN CHEF: Ce communique est egalement disponible en francais; appeler 902-424-4492 ou c. elec. Release@gov.ns.ca .

NOTE TO EDITORS: The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency has worked with the provincial departments of education and the Atlantic Provinces Education Foundation since the early 1990s to encourage entrepreneurship and acquisition of enterprising values in the education system in Atlantic Canada.

For a backgrounder on this work, please e-mail release@gov.ns.ca or call 902-424-4492.