Impact of entrepreneurship education of youth on the development of SMEs in the Republic of Moldova

Abstract

Involvement of youth in the field of entrepreneurship in the Republic of Moldova is one of the important tasks carried out by the Government, in the framework of the development policies for small and mediumsized enterprises (SMEs), as well as of policies in the sphere of education. The solution of this task can positively affect the well-being of young people, improving opportunities for self-development, increasing their social activity, as well as limitation of the mass migration of youth. The paper presents an overview of the development of SMEs and their support policies (with an emphasis on involving young people in business), as well as there is presented, in general, participation of youth in the economy of the Republic of Moldova. The main attention is paid to the analysis of entrepreneurial education of youth. In the article, the emphasis is made on teaching entrepreneurship in Moldova in the system of secondary vocational education: a list of implemented measures and developed documents that provided the beginning of this process are presented; the influence of entrepreneurial education on the emergence of a start-up business or ensuring self-employment is analyzed; the problems of development of entrepreneurial skills are approached. The survey of graduates of the technical vocational education institutions, which passed a learning course on entrepreneurship, represents the base for results and conclusions. After the completion of the studies, a part of graduates created their own business or got self-employed. The survey was carried out during 2016-2017, with the active involvement of authors.