‘Qatar needs a national strategy for entrepreneurship education’

Qatar should develop a national strategy for entrepreneurship education (EE) and have a centralised government entity to unite the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MoEHE) with multi-stakeholders as part of the five-pronged roadmap to have sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystem, according to a report from HEC Paris.“A national strategy for EE in Qatar should be drawn up and continually monitored and updated according to the populations’ needs,” Maryam al-Khalaf, a research associate at the World Innovation Summit for Education, an initiative of Qatar Foundation, said in the HEC Paris report, edited by Dr Allan Villegas-Mateos.This national strategy should be developed in line with the national development strategy and other regional and national visions, she said.“The new EE national strategy can be added to one of the pillars of Qatar National Vision 2030, such as the economic or human pillar, where EE could potentially play a significant role,” according to her.The MoEHE must lead or be a part of this national strategy as it is one of the responsibilities to improve EE in Qatar and to include it in primary or secondary schools, which could eventually improve the entrepreneurship ecosystem in the country, she said.This recommendation stems from the realisation that Qatar is trying to improve the entrepreneurship ecosystem but is not putting sufficient emphasis on the educational aspects or efforts to strengthen entrepreneurship, al-Khalaf said.“In terms of implementation, the government can establish a national strategy and include the MoEHE, along with relevant institutions in the country such as Qatar Development Bank, to set specific KPIs (key performance indicators) and, most importantly, a timeline to achieve this strategy,” she said.Pitching for a centralised government institution that connects MoEHE, private sector, semi-governmental and governmental agencies to improve EE in Qatar; the report said the current lack of such an entity makes it difficult to follow upon what each institution is doing or achieving.“A centralised government institution is needed to serve as a proactive platform to gather and disseminate knowledge, research and findings from different institutions offering EE. This platform could also support institutional collaboration on research and training,” al-Khalaf said.Highlighting that this institution could create specific, mandatory metrics for the effects of training programmes; she said these standardised metrics can be applied to all institutions to accurately examine the impact of their training programmes and modify them accordingly.The report recommended that the government body could include multiple stakeholders such as policymakers, the MoEHE, universities, research centres, government agencies, investors, incubators and accelerators.“It could create an advisory board with representatives from each institution who would be responsible for planning, setting objectives, analysing the situation and results, and suggesting improvement areas for EE in Qatar,” al-Khalaf said.The content of EE should be localised to fit the needs and goals of participants and in this regard, it suggested the content should include case studies from Qatar and support hands-on experience for participants.The report called for further academic and policy research on EE as it said such works could identify the current gaps and obstacles in developing the EE in the country.It also suggested that instructors and coaches should undergo extensive training in experiential learning methods, including new and updated teaching materials and would have to be funded by the specific institutions providing EE.