Zainab Fattah Including entrepreneurial thinking in curricula is crucial because it fosters creativity, problem-solving, and resilience, which are valuable skills in any career or life situation. Entrepreneurial thinking encourages students to identify opportunities, think outside the box, and take calculated risks, skills that help them navigate challenges and adapt in an ever-changing world. It also builds confidence in turning ideas into action, which can be applied whether they’re starting a business, working in a corporation, or leading a community project. By teaching students to see challenges as opportunities and empowering them to innovate, we prepare them not only to thrive in the workforce but also to create and shape their own futures. In essence, entrepreneurial thinking helps students become proactive, adaptable, and forward-thinking individuals, which is key to success in the modern world.

Why Include Entrepreneurial Thinking in Curricula?

1. It’s Not Just About Starting Businesses — It’s About Solving Problems Creatively

Entrepreneurial thinking is fundamentally about identifying needs, designing solutions, taking initiative, and iterating based on feedback. Sound familiar? These are the same cognitive muscles we flex in mathematical modeling, project-based learning, and real-world problem solving.

In math education, we often ask: “When will I ever use this?” Entrepreneurial thinking answers that — by embedding math in contexts where students design, pitch, budget, optimize, and scale ideas. Suddenly, algebra isn’t abstract — it’s the tool you use to forecast profit margins for your student-run café.

2. Fosters Agency and Ownership of Learning

Traditional curricula can feel transactional: learn → test → forget. Entrepreneurial thinking flips that. When students are tasked with creating value — whether a product, service, or social initiative — they become invested. They ask better questions. They persist through failure. They revise. They collaborate.

In my research, I’ve seen students who previously disengaged from math become deeply motivated when framing problems through entrepreneurial lenses: “How can we reduce food waste in our cafeteria using data?” → enter statistics, ratios, optimization models.

3. Builds Future-Ready Competencies

The World Economic Forum lists complex problem solving, critical thinking, creativity, and emotional intelligence among the top skills for 2025. Entrepreneurial thinking cultivates all of these — through ambiguity, risk, iteration, and human-centered design.

Math classrooms infused with entrepreneurial challenges become labs for resilience. A failed prototype? That’s an opportunity to analyze error margins. A pivot in strategy? That’s systems thinking in action.

4. Democratizes Innovation

Entrepreneurial thinking isn’t reserved for the “gifted” or the privileged. It’s a mindset — teachable, scalable, and equitable. When we embed it across subjects, we tell every student: Your ideas matter. You can create change. You have the tools — even if those tools are equations, graphs, or algorithms.

In underserved communities I’ve worked with, entrepreneurial math projects (e.g., designing affordable housing layouts using geometry and cost analysis) have ignited not just academic growth, but civic pride and identity.

“Entrepreneurial Thinking… All About It”

Let’s break it down simply:

Entrepreneurial Thinking = Problem Finding + Solution Design + Resourcefulness + Resilience + Value Creation

It’s not about venture capital or Shark Tank (though those can be fun hooks). It’s about:

• Seeing gaps and asking, “What if…?”
• Testing hypotheses — like a scientist, but with market or social feedback.
• Using constraints as catalysts (limited budget? That’s optimization territory!)
• Communicating ideas persuasively — yes, even in math class. (Can you defend your model? Can you visualize your data for stakeholders?)

Where Does Math Fit In?

Everywhere.

• Algebra? Forecasting growth, break-even analysis.
• Geometry? Product design, spatial efficiency.
• Statistics? Validating customer needs, A/B testing.
• Calculus? Rate of change in user adoption, marginal cost.
• Discrete Math? Logistics, network optimization.

Entrepreneurial thinking gives math purpose. And purpose drives engagement. Engagement drives mastery.

Final Thought:

“We don’t teach entrepreneurial thinking to create more startups. We teach it to create more thinkers — thinkers who see math not as a set of rules, but as a language of possibility.”

Let’s stop asking students to solve problems we’ve already solved. Let’s ask them to find the problems worth solving — and give them the mathematical tools to do it.

That’s how we future-proof education.

P.S. Want a sample lesson?

Try: “Design a pop-up shop for your school. Use linear equations to model costs vs. revenue. Present your ‘pitch’ to a panel using data visualizations.” Watch engagement — and understanding — skyrocket.

Entrepreneurial thinking helps students develop creativity, problem-solving skills, and resilience, preparing them to adapt to rapidly changing workplaces and global challenges. Including it in the curriculum encourages innovation, critical thinking, and initiative, empowering students to turn ideas into action and contribute meaningfully to society.

I recommend this article for you to read. You will find the answer to your question.

https://doi.org/10.9734/acri/2025/v25i71322

I can answer this question on the perspective of a teacher in elementary, high school and college level. For elementary, including entrepreneurial thinking can tap the application of cognitive, psychomotor, and affective skills learned across all subjects like a simple way of teaching selling lemonade to elementary students can boost what they learned in Math, English, Health/Science etc. With high school students, including entrepreneurial thinking like letting them experience organizing a bazaar

or selling can help develop our students’ critical thinking skills

With high school and college students, they can experience conceptualizing a small business of their choice/interest like selling t-shirts, reselling stuff, or offering services like computer skills(editing, creating videos, song composition, etc.). They will get to experience planning, financing, selling, monitoring, auditing while applying skills (communication, social, thinking, researching, self-management), attitudes, and knowledge learned. They can also apply knowledge learned on SDGs and reflect on how circular economy works.

After all, students are sent to school to be productive citizens who should be creative/critical thinkers, problem solvers, innovators, and capable on applying financial literacy learned in class so that they will be productive and not add up to the problem of poverty and illiteracy.

You are absolutely right — but we must ask: Is our current system designed to deliver that promise? Or are we still teaching for obedience, not agency? For memorization, not meaning?

Let me break this down — with data, with heart, and with pedagogical fire.

1. The Vision You Describe Is Not Utopian — It’s Urgent

You’re describing human-centered, future-ready education — where students don’t just “learn math” but use math to model real-world problems. Where they don’t just “study economics” but design microbusinesses using cost-benefit analysis. Where literacy isn’t just decoding words — it’s decoding systems of power, opportunity, and justice.

This is not idealism. This is survival.

As shown in Enoch et al. (2025), when undergraduates in Ghana were exposed to a Career and Professional Development Course grounded in experiential learning, their entrepreneurial confidence soared:

• Mean score of 4.15/5 on “applicability of skills to real-world problems”
• 4.13/5 on “understanding risk management”
• 4.08/5 on “confidence to generate innovative ideas”

These are not abstract metrics. These are lives being redirected — from dependency to agency. From “job seeker” to “value creator.”

2. Mathematics Is the Secret Weapon — If Taught Right

You mentioned financial literacy. Let me tell you — math classrooms are the perfect incubators for this.

But not the way we’ve been teaching it.

Old way: “Solve for x.” New way: “You have ₱500. Rent is ₱300. Your sari-sari store makes ₱50/day. How many days until you break even? What if you add a new product? Graph your profit.”

That’s not just math — that’s survival math. That’s entrepreneurial thinking. That’s what Enoch’s study calls “concrete experience → abstract conceptualization” (Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory).

In my own work, I’ve seen students in underserved communities go from “I hate math” to “I used ratios to scale my pancake recipe for our school fair — we made ₱2,000!” That’s the moment math becomes power.

3. Poverty & Illiteracy Are Not “Fate” — They’re Design Flaws in Education

You said students should “not add up to the problem of poverty and illiteracy.” Powerful words.

But let’s be honest: if we send students back into communities with no tools to create value, no understanding of systems, no practice in problem-solving — then yes, they will remain trapped in cycles.

The solution? Education that treats students as co-designers of their future — not passive recipients of content.

Enoch’s study proves it: when students are given practical tools for personal branding, project management, financial literacy, and networking, they don’t just “feel more confident” — they act. They start side hustles. They mentor peers. They see themselves as agents of economic change.

4. Critical Thinking ≠ Standardized Tests. Creativity ≠ Art Class.

You mentioned “creative/critical thinkers, problem solvers, innovators.” These are not “soft skills” — they are cognitive survival skills.

And they are best developed through:

• Play-based learning (as shown in Zyldjian Tepora’s study — reading scores in Grades 1–3 doubled through joyful, game-based interventions)
• Project-based learning (“Design a budget for your dream community”)
• Entrepreneurial challenges (“Pitch a solution to reduce food waste in our school — using data”)

These are not “extras.” They are the core.

5. A Call to Action — From Theory to Transformation

So what do we do?

Final Thought :

“We don’t send children to school to become better test-takers. We send them to become better world-builders. If our classrooms aren’t incubators of agency, creativity, and economic literacy — then we are not educating. We are processing.”

Your vision is not radical. It’s rational. It’s necessary. And with studies like Enoch’s and Tepora’s lighting the path, we have no excuse not to act.

Let’s stop preparing students for a world that no longer exists — and start co-creating, with them, the world that must be.