Early childhood education and care
Early childhood education and care
Entrepreneurship education in early childhood education and care
In early childhood education and care, the basic elements of entrepreneurship education are included as part of the pedagogical learning components. Children are encouraged to trust their own abilities and solve challenges in different situations. The aim is to create an interactive and supportive environment where it is safe to make mistakes. Entrepreneurship education encourages children to discover the joy of learning.
Find out more about the common objectives and recommendations of the North Ostrobothnia model of entrepreneurship education here.
Development objectives
Various development objectives have been defined for early childhood education and care. These are:
- Recognising the work already done on entrepreneurship education and strengthening the entrepreneurship education skills of teaching staff through further training and networking
- Combining the content and values of entrepreneurship education and the themes of digitalisation, sustainability and internationalisation with the learning of broad skills.
- Collaborating with primary education and taking into account linkages.
- Using methods that support the discovery of children’s strengths, the identification of skills and the development of self-esteem.
- Encouraging children to experiment and use different ways of working, and to wonder about and solve problems related to entrepreneurship education themes, in cooperation and interaction with groups of different sizes.
- Developing methods to encourage children to explore different professions, society and the economy.
Competency targets
Regionally, there is a set of competence objectives for entrepreneurship education, drawn from the Early Childhood Education and Care curriculum. The objectives are designed to help early childhood education and care staff to identify the work they already do in entrepreneurship education. The objectives are reached throughout the child’s individual learning and school pathways.
- The child recognises his/her own strengths and is confident in his/her abilities in everyday situations.
- The child practises cooperation and interaction skills, self-help and shared responsibility.
- The child is introduced to the concept of employment and is familiarised with different occupations and jobs.
- The child learns what money is and what it is used for.
- The child learns about the components and meaning of sustainable living through his/her everyday life.
- The child learns about safe digital environments and experiments with different devices and tools. The child is inspired to explore, use and produce messages in different environments, including digital ones, strengthening his/her multilingual skills.
- The child recognises that he/she is part of a culturally, linguistically and religiously diverse world.
