Entrepreneurship competence is the ability to identify and seize opportunities and to plan and manage creative processes that are of cultural, social or financial value. It requires a knowledge of contexts and opportunities, approaches to planning and management, ethical principles and self-awareness. It includes the skills of creativity (imagination, critical reflection, problem-solving), communication, mobilizing resources (people and things), and coping with uncertainty, ambiguity and risk.

An entrepreneurial mind-set also includes the attitudes of self-efficacy, motivation and perseverance, and valuing the ideas of others. For entrepreneurship education to be effective in developing the competences of learners, the capacity of schools to create supportive and stimulating learning environments is as important as is the personal competences and motivation of educators.

Entrepreneurship education cannot take place in isolation from the world outside of the school. It may require working in partnership with external organizations in order to facilitate learning in other ways.