- 2016Implementation
- 2017Implementation
- 2018Implementation
- 2019Approved/Agreed
- 2020Implementation
- 2021Implementation
- 2022Implementation
- 2023Implementation
- 2024Implementation
Background
The school's mission is to prepare learners for a society marked by constant and rapid change and an increasingly competitive and interregional labour market. Knowing how to draw up a career plan, mastering its implementation, taking initiatives and cooperating have become essential skills.
Objectives
Encourage the emergence of secondary schools that not only foster links with the economic and social world, but also lead learners to develop cross-curricular skills that enable them to engage with the future through entrepreneurial challenges.
Description
The Jonk Entrepreneuren Luxembourg asbl (created in 2005) brings together representatives from the school and business worlds, to perpetuate and boost the 'entrepreneurial spirit' movement in Luxembourg's education system. It has two major objectives: explaining to and teaching young people throughout their school curriculum that self-employment is an alternative to hired employment, and giving a taste for entrepreneurship, innovation, creation and leadership.
They implement several projects in secondary schools, including technical secondary schools. Implemented projects, include: My first enterprise, The Mini companies project, Practice enterprises, and Entrepreneurial school award.
In My first enterprise, a group of three to four students, with a starting capital of EUR 40, establish for a period of 10 weeks a small business that consists of buying and selling small products, a service or a small production activity. The goal is to teach them the first steps of business management.
In the Mini companies project, learners from secondary schools are responsible for a mini company for one year. They are required to make decisions and take responsibility for the companies while teachers act as coaches. The project takes place outside the curriculum and differs from other school related activities. The project is a break with the traditional image of the academic courses. External assistance to the school is provided through a...
The Jonk Entrepreneuren Luxembourg asbl (created in 2005) brings together representatives from the school and business worlds, to perpetuate and boost the 'entrepreneurial spirit' movement in Luxembourg's education system. It has two major objectives: explaining to and teaching young people throughout their school curriculum that self-employment is an alternative to hired employment, and giving a taste for entrepreneurship, innovation, creation and leadership.
They implement several projects in secondary schools, including technical secondary schools. Implemented projects, include: My first enterprise, The Mini companies project, Practice enterprises, and Entrepreneurial school award.
In My first enterprise, a group of three to four students, with a starting capital of EUR 40, establish for a period of 10 weeks a small business that consists of buying and selling small products, a service or a small production activity. The goal is to teach them the first steps of business management.
In the Mini companies project, learners from secondary schools are responsible for a mini company for one year. They are required to make decisions and take responsibility for the companies while teachers act as coaches. The project takes place outside the curriculum and differs from other school related activities. The project is a break with the traditional image of the academic courses. External assistance to the school is provided through a pool of entrepreneurs-advisers or coaches who visit the mini companies on several occasions to coach the students before and on important dates (product selection, constituent general meeting).
Practice enterprises is a course based on the simulation of a company's life that promotes the entrepreneurial spirit and skills. The Jonk Entrepreneuren, as the national central office for practice enterprises (CLEE), offers access to a network of more than 7 500 practice enterprises from more than 45 countries. This course is included in the programme of the Technician diploma in Administration and Commerce.
To make entrepreneurial education initiatives visible, Jonk Entrepreneuren Luxembourg also organises an annual national competition, the Entrepreneurial school awards (TES-Awards), to encourage, and rewards schools that develop entrepreneurial initiatives for learners and teachers.
In 2016, the project on Promotion of entrepreneurship in secondary education was launched. It promoted entrepreneurship profiles in secondary schools, including VET schools. Learners were invited to address challenges taking place at school or in a company. The education and economics ministries supported the project and were represented in the steering committees of each participating school.
Agreements signed between schools and the Ministry of National Education, Children and Youth also promote entrepreneurship. Four such agreements have been signed: with the École privée Marie Consolatrice school, Lycée Ermesinde, Lycée technique de Lallange, and Lycée technique École de Commerce et de Gestion. The agreements established 'entrepreneur-schools' (école entrepreneuriale). Becoming an entrepreneur-school means a duty for the school to promote initiative spirit and entrepreneurship and cultivate the sense of creativity and originality in young people. Entrepreneur-schools have access to a network of companies that enable coming closer to the professional world.
On 12 July 2019, a law amendment to the act establishing the pilot secondary school introduced new 'entrepreneurial units'. During these units, learners are initiated to economic, social, and environmental practices in the frame of a practical case of goods or services production. The units initiate learners in economic, social and environmental practices in a production context to provide an entrepreneurial education.
According to the law, some of the areas addressed include: setting up, maintaining, and developing production of goods or services, designing, implementing, and developing of distribution or marketing, promoting sustainability of production and distribution, researching means of environment-friendly and healthy production and distribution. In addition, it means involving learners in all activities of the enterprise, valuing competences of corresponding trades and professions, including those of professional level, promoting the use of new technologies, and supporting learners at documenting their activities in the company. Occasional reception of learners of other enterprises is organised.
Despite the COVID-19 crisis, the Entrepreneurial school awards 2020 by the Jonk Entrepreneuren Luxembourg took place in May 2020. Three secondary schools applied for the awards and the Technical Agricultural secondary school won the prize 'This school is close to the labour market'.
A digital version for the 13th edition of the Practice enterprises fair took place in December 2020. The fair allowed learners to meet online and create business alliances on the new web platform. Here students and other visitors could connect and visit the booths of the practice companies. Everyone could thus exchange with the learners employed by these fictive companies and carry out virtual commercial transactions. At the end of the fair, Jonk Entrepreneuren Luxembourg awarded the following prizes, the selection having been made by a jury from the economic and educational world: Best business practice, Best video and marketing campaign, and Best dossier and catalogue.
In 2020, the original Entrepreneurial Schools project was redesigned and resulted in the "Sustainable Entrepreneurial Schools" project which is an initiative of the Department for Coordination of Educational and Technological Research and Innovation (SCRIPT) in collaboration with the General Directorate for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises of the Ministry of the Economy. The online platform, launched in March 2021, brings together secondary schools committed to the Sustainable entrepreneurial competence programme and external economic partners. It gathers documentation on the projects and progress of schools in the field of sustainable entrepreneurship. It also offers the possibility for project partners to promote sustainable entrepreneurial competence among secondary school learners through workshops, mini-courses, conferences, competitions, visits and challenges. The platform is not about entrepreneurial activities per se, such as making profits in companies, but rather a tool to encourage learners to find their way in a world that is constantly changing and in which sustainable and creative thinking is increasingly important.
Since 2021, secondary schools can apply for three labels in the context of the Sustainable entrepreneurial schools project: Start-up; Entrepreneurial progression; Entrepreneurial culture.
In September 2021, the first 12 secondary schools received their labels during the first Sustainable entrepreneurial school day.
In September 2022, SCRIPT organised the second edition of the Sustainable Entrepreneurial School day during which the project partners and secondary school representatives met. The 16 partner secondary schools received their label while secondary schools that were not part of the project, learned more about it.
In October 2023, the third national 'Sustainable Entrepreneurial School' took place in a new form. In addition to the exchange between the project partners and secondary school representative, for the first time, external partners of the project set small challenges in a rally during which learners form secondary schools were able to demonstrate their sustainable entrepreneurial competences. The 17 partner secondary schools were awarded their label for their efforts in the school year 2022/2023 as part of the 'Sustainable Entrepreneurial Schools' project.
The fourth national 'Sustainable Entrepreneurial School' day took place in October 2024.
In 2023/24, 550 learners aged 15-19 years, have participated in the Mini companies ('Mini-enterprise') programme in secondary schools, including VET.15 of the 95 mini-enterprises that were created by the learners were selected to participate in the final award competition.
Bodies responsible
- Ministry of Education, Children and Youth
- Department for Coordination of Educational and Technological Research and Innovation (SCRIPT)
- Ministry of Economy
Target groups
Learners
- Learners in upper secondary, including apprentices
- Young people (15-29 years old)
Education professionals
- School leaders
Thematic categories
Governance of VET and lifelong learning
This thematic category looks at existing legal frameworks providing for strategic, operational – including quality assurance – and financing arrangements for VET and lifelong learning (LLL). It examines how VET and LLL-related policies are placed in broad national socioeconomic contexts and coordinate with other strategies and policies, such as economic, social and employment, growth and innovation, recovery and resilience.
This thematic category covers partnerships and collaboration networks of VET stakeholders – especially the social partners – to shape and implement VET in a country, including looking at how their roles and responsibilities for VET at national, regional and local levels are shared and distributed, ensuring an appropriate degree of autonomy for VET providers to adapt their offer.
The thematic category also includes efforts to create national, regional and sectoral skills intelligence systems (skills anticipation and graduate tracking) and using skills intelligence for making decisions about VET and LLL on quality, inclusiveness and flexibility.
This thematic sub-category refers both to formal mechanisms of stakeholder engagement in VET governance and to informal cooperation among stakeholders, which motivate shared responsibility for quality VET. Formal engagement is usually based on legally established institutional procedures that clearly define the role and responsibilities for relevant stakeholders in designing, implementing and improving VET. It also refers to establishing and increasing the degree of autonomy of VET providers for agile and flexible VET provision.
In terms of informal cooperation, the sub-category covers targeted actions by different stakeholders to promote or implement VET. This cooperation often leads to creating sustainable partnerships and making commitments for targeted actions, in line with the national context and regulation, e.g. national alliances for apprenticeships, pacts for youth or partnerships between schools and employers. It can also include initiatives and projects run by the social partners or sectoral organisations or networks of voluntary experts and executives, retired or on sabbatical, to support their peers in the fields of VET and apprenticeships, as part of the EAfA.
Modernising VET offer and delivery
This thematic category looks at what and how individuals learn, how learning content and learning outcomes in initial and continuing VET are defined, adapted and updated. First and foremost, it examines how VET standards, curricula, programmes and training courses are updated and modernised or new ones created. Updated and renewed VET content ensures that learners acquire a balanced mix of competences that address modern demands, and are more closely aligned with the realities of the labour market, including key competences, digital competences and skills for green transition and sustainability, both sector-specific and across sectors. Using learning outcomes as a basis is important to facilitate this modernisation, including modularisation of VET programmes. Updating and developing teaching and learning materials to support the above is also part of the category.
The thematic category continues to focus on strengthening high-quality and inclusive apprenticeships and work-based learning in real-life work environments and in line with the European framework for quality and effective apprenticeships. It looks at expanding apprenticeship to continuing vocational training and at developing VET programmes at EQF levels 5-8 for better permeability and lifelong learning and to support the need for higher vocational skills.
This thematic category also focuses on VET delivery through a mix of open, digital and participative learning environments, including workplaces conducive to learning, which are flexible, more adaptable to the ways individuals learn, and provide more access and outreach to various groups of learners, diversifying modes of learning and exploiting the potential of digital learning solutions and blended learning to complement face-to-face learning.
Centres of vocational excellence that connect VET to innovation and skill ecosystems and facilitate stronger cooperation with business and research also fall into this category.
This thematic sub-category focuses on developing and updating all kinds of learning resources and materials, both for learners and for teachers and trainers (e.g. teachers handbooks or manuals), to embrace current and evolving content and modes of learning. These activities target all kinds of formats: hard copy and digital publications, learning websites and platforms, tools for learner self-assessment of progress, ICT-based simulators, virtual and augmented reality, etc.
This thematic sub-category refers to acquisition of key competences and basic skills for all, from an early age and throughout their life, including those acquired as part of qualifications and curricula. Key competences include knowledge, skills and attitudes needed by all for personal fulfilment and development, employability and lifelong learning, social inclusion, active citizenship and sustainable awareness. Key competences include literacy; multilingual; science, technology, engineering and mathematical (STEM); digital; personal, social and learning to learn; active citizenship, entrepreneurship, cultural awareness and expression (Council of the European Union, 2018).
Subsystem
Further reading
Country
Type of development
Cedefop, & ReferNet. (2025). Promoting entrepreneurship in secondary schools: Luxembourg. In Cedefop, & ReferNet. (2025). Timeline of VET policies in Europe (2024 update) [Online tool].
https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en/tools/timeline-vet-policies-europe/search/28371