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VOCATIONAL TRAINING NO. 29 EUROPEAN JOURNAL

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Enterprise creation ini-tiatives in Basque voca-tional training centres

1. Introduction. Vocationaltraining in Spain and theBasque Autonomous Com-munity

The vocational training system in Spainis currently arranged in accordance withthe Organic Law on the Education Sys-tem (LOGSE, 1990). Under this Law, thenew vocational training system is split intothree levels: initial/compulsory education,job training, and continuing training. Con-tinuing training for workers falls underthe Labour Administration, and a substan-tial part of it is managed through theFoundation for Continuing Training(FORCEM (1)), while the national andautonomous Labour Administrations areresponsible for compulsory education andjob training for unemployed workers(Perez Esparrel, 2000).

LOGSE has led to the introduction of aseries of highly pertinent reforms thathave had a considerable effect on teach-ing in vocational education and training.The introduction of these subjects into theeducation system is reflected in figure 1:

Figure 1:In contrast to the situation that obtainedbefore LOGSE, in which it was possibleto enter vocational training at the age of14 years without completing the preced-ing basic education, compulsory educa-tion now extends until 16 years of age,and it is necessary to have successfullycompleted compulsory secondary educa-tion (ESO) to proceed to intermediatevocational training. In order to pursueadvanced vocational training, it is neces-sary to have gained the upper secondaryleaving certificate, the Bachillerato. Theseincreased educational requirements have

led to a re-evaluation of vocational train-ing so that it is no longer regarded, as itused to be, as a form of education takenup by less well prepared students whodo not wish to continue studying.

While 82 % of Spanish compulsory voca-tional education students had no contactwith the world of work in the school year1995/96 (CEDEFOP, 2001), the gradualadoption of LOGSE has led to the inclu-sion of the compulsory module ‘WorkCentre Training’ in all intermediate andadvanced courses. This module providesfor placements in enterprises lasting from8 to 15 weeks, and has brought aboutcloser ties between training centres andemployers, which helps those complet-ing vocational training to find jobs.

In respect of growth in student numbers,the figures for completion of vocationaltraining in Spain are far removed fromthe European average, where vocationaltraining attracts more students than gen-eral upper secondary education. By con-trast with such countries as Austria, Ger-many and Italy, where more than 70 % ofstudents follow vocational courses, thefigure is only 33 % in Spain (EURYDICE,2000), a higher number of students goingon to the Bachillerato and subsequentlyto university. Only Ireland and Portugalin fact have a percentage of students invocational training lower than Spain(CEDEFOP, 2001).

The situation is similar in the BasqueCountry, and has led to growing concernover the match between the educationsystem and the needs of employers. Ac-cording the Basque Employers’ Federa-tion CONFEBASK, there is a shortage of18 000 workers in the Basque Countrywith basic vocational training, while the

This article sets out to ex-amine the initiatives devel-oped to foster the entrepre-neurial spirit and the crea-tion of enterprises by stu-dents in the specific contextof vocational training in theBasque Country. The articletherefore looks in depth atbest practice in the centresof the Basque AutonomousCommunity, with the aim ofdisseminating first-classexperiences to other train-ing centres in Europe.

Imanol BasterretxeaAna González

Aitziber OlasoloMaría SaizLola Simón

Universidad del País Vasco

(1) The Basque Foundation for Con-tinuing Training (HOBETUZ) was setup in 1997 and has independent con-trol of training for people in work inthe Basque Autonomous Community.


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Figure 1:

Organisational plan of the education system.

Source: Department of Education, Universities and Research of the Basque Government. http://www.euskadi.net/lanbidez/fp/organigrama_c.htm

2. Aims and methodologyof courses

This article forms part of a researchproject (3), the main aim of which hasbeen to analyse the relationship betweenvocational training centres and employ-ment in the Basque Autonomous Com-munity. Within this research, one of theaims of the research team has been tostudy the initiatives implemented by vari-ous centres to foster the entrepreneurialspirit and the creation of enterprises bystudents, exploring in depth the best prac-tices that exist in the centres in the BasqueCountry.

Although many European vocational train-ing centres are fostering the entrepre-neurial spirit and enterprise creation,these initiatives are seldom reported inscientific articles and publications. Thisis the reason why we are presenting thisarticle, in the belief that experience ofenterprise creation in a number of Basquevocational training centres may provide

supply of university graduates has grownmore rapidly than the demand, and hasled to high levels of unemploymentamong graduates (CONFEBASK, 2000;Araujo et al., 2001). Some research stud-ies of Spain as a whole reveal the sameproblem, suggesting the existence of aphenomenon of ‘overeducation’ which isgiving rise to high rates of unemploymentand to working conditions for Spanishgraduates that are worse than those ofEuropean graduates (Albert et al., 2000;Dolado et al., 2000; Sáez and Rey, 2000;García Montalvo and Mora, 2000).

The scarcity of people who have com-pleted vocational training has led to anincrease in the resources devoted to thistype of education by the national gov-ernment, the autonomous communitiesand the local authorities. Both CentralGovernment and the Basque Government,and provincial governments, are carryingout publicity campaigns to attract morestudents to these courses, and employ-ers’ associations have also become in-volved in promoting them. In the BasqueCountry, this joint effort has produced arise in the quality rather than in the quan-tity of students. In the last three years,for example, the number of students inintermediate courses has fallen by 40 %while there has been a rise of 66 % inadmissions to advanced vocational train-ing courses, which currently account for58 % of the 31 000 and more Basque stu-dents of vocational training (EUSTAT,Education Statistics).

The vocational courses most sought afterby students at intermediate level are inengineering, electricity and electronics,hairdressing and beauty, and plumbing.In advanced vocational training, it is ad-ministration, engineering, electricity andelectronics, and information technologywhich have the largest numbers of stu-dents. The high numbers of students intechnical fields such as engineering re-flect the business situation in the BasqueCountry, which has a relative preponder-ance of industry.

In terms of legal status, there are morepublic vocational training centres in theAutonomous Basque Community thanprivate. The private network takes thelead in training, however, in the threeprovinces (2).

Logse Bachillerato

Selection

University

Advancedvocational training

cycle1300 - 2000 hours,

76 possible advanced

technical quals.

Vocational initiation

programmes1000-1900 hours,

over one or two courses, leading to a certificate

Intermediatevocational training

cycle1300 - 2000 hours,

61 possible technical quals.

16 years

18 years

Pupils who do not successfully complete ESO

Infant education

Primary education

0 years

6 years

12 years

Compulsorysecondary

education (ESO)

16 years

16 years

18 years

(2) For greater detail on vocationaltraining in Spain and the BasqueCountry see LOGSE, 1990; PerezEsparrel, 2000; Alonso García, 2000;Gobierno Vasco, 1998, 2001;Basterretxea et al., 2002; Ministerio deEducación, Cultura y Deporte, 2002.

(3) This project was subsidised by theDepartment of Employment andTraining of the Bizkaia ProvincialGovernment, the company DEMAEnpresa Garapena, and the EuropeanSocial Fund, and its results are pub-lished in Basterretxea et al. (2002),Colaboración entre centros deFormación Profesional y empresas enla Comunidad Autónoma Vasca. Bil-bao: Servicio Editorial de la UPV/EHU.


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2000; Churchwell, 2000; De la Sota, 2000;Blanco, 2000; Meneses, 2001);

• problems of funding new enterprises,obtaining financial resources from riskcapital, and financing of new enterprisesby universities themselves (Sandelin, 2000;Numark, 2000; Churchwell, 2000; Cullen,2000; López, 2001; Ullastres, 2001;Tornatzky et al., 2002);

• infrastructure, incubators, technologyparks, and human, educational and finan-cial media available to some universitiesto support enterprise initiatives (Sandelin,2000; Cullen, 2000, Rubí, 2001; López,2001; Ullastres, 2001; Tormatzky et al.,2002);

• use of contacts between universitiesand local businesses and institutions toestablish networks bringing together re-searchers, entrepreneurs, suppliers and in-vestors (Numark, 2000; Sandelin, 2000;Tormatzky et al., 2002);

Table 1:

Vocational training centres taking part in the study

Centres belonging to the IKASLAN public network Centres belonging to the HETELprivate network

Questionnaire alone:1. IES Barrutialde (Arratzu)2. Iurreta GLHB Institutua3. Instituto EFPS Fadura4. Mutrikuko Institutua5. Instituto Politécnico Easo6. Martuteneko BHI7. Donostiako Eraikuntzako Institutua8. IEFPS Bidasoa GBLHA9. Instituto Plaiaundi10. Herrnani Institutua11. RM Zuazola-Larraña BHI12. Don Bosco –RENTERIA13. UNI. Eibar-Ermua14. IES Hostelería de Gamarra15. IES. ‘Samaniego’ La Guardia

Source: Compiled by authors

Interview and questionnaire:1. Instituto FP superior Nicolás Larburu

(Barakaldo)2. IEFPS Ategorri-Tartanga (Erandio).3. IMH –Elgoibar4. IEFPS- Usurbil5. IEFPS Mendizabala GLHBI

Interview alone:1. Elorrieta2. San Jorge3. Emilio Campuzano

Questionnaire alone:1. San Viator2. Zulaibar3. Zabalburu4. San José Obrero5. Lasalle

Interview and questionnaire:1. Lea –Artibai2. Txorierri3. Instituto Politécnico Jesús Obrero.4. Diocesanas5. Somorrostro6. Goierri

Interview alone:1. Zumarraga.2. Escuela Politécnica Superior de

Mondragón.

guidelines and practices that can be trans-ferred to other vocational training cen-tres in Europe.

The literature on the creation of enter-prises in training centres is scarce, focusesalmost exclusively on university experi-ence, and largely consists of conferenceand seminar reports in which universityteachers and heads of university enter-prise development centres or ‘nurseries’discuss good practice (Meneses, 2001;Rubí, 2001; Tornatzky et al., 2002; Chiesaand Poccaluga, 2000; Leiceaga, 2001;López, 2001; Ullastres, 2001; MADRI+D,2000). Some of the results of this researchcan easily be transferred to vocationaltraining centres in the Basque context, aswill be seen later on in some of the casesexamined in this paper. The main linesof research in these publications are thefollowing:

• obstacles facing researchers and univer-sity teachers as entrepreneurs (Tuominen,

(4) We used a questionnaire of ourown design to gather data. The ques-tionnaire was pre-tested with studentsof the intended recipients in order toassess its suitability and the relevanceof the items in it. The version of thequestionnaire sent to training centresis conta ined in Annex I I toBasterretxea et al. (2002).

(5) Seventy-two centres were selectedout of a population of 170 vocationaltraining centres in the Community ofthe Basque Country. The criterion forselection was inclusion in the networkIKASLAN (a network which covers82.15 % of students admitted to pub-lic vocational training centres) orHETEL (which covers the most impor-tant privately run centres, accountingfor 54.45 % of students admitted toprivate centres). The selection of thesample followed consultation with theleaders of the Vocational Education


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• the importance of university leadershipand corporate culture in the success orfailure or various programmes support-ing enterprise creation (De la Sota, 2000,Meneses, 2001; Rubí, 2001; Tornatzky,2002; Leiceaga, 2001; Ullastres, 2001).

In order to carry out our research, wecollected information about experiencesof enterprise creation in various centresby means of a questionnaire (4) that wasdesigned and sent to 72 Basque vocationaltraining centres (5), and semi-guided in-terviews with various centre directors (6).In total, 36 vocational training centrestook part in the study, 23 of the 53 publiccentres contacted, and 13 of the 19 pri-vate.

Table 1:The centres shown in Table 1 are distrib-uted throughout the three provinceswhich make up the Basque AutonomousCommunity: Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa and Araba.

Figure 2:

3. Support for the creationof enterprises by studentsin Basque vocational train-ing centres

In recent years, certain vocational train-ing centres have developed a variety ofprogrammes to foster the entrepreneurialspirit of their students and to help themto set up new business projects. As canbe seen from the following table, onlythree of the directors of centres inter-viewed stated that the creation of enter-prises was not an aim of the centre. Al-most half of centres restrict themselvesto fostering students’ entrepreneurialspirit, around a third have the support ofvarious regional development agencies,employers’ associations or institutionsdevoted to the creation of enterprises, andsix centres have their own enterprise crea-tion schemes.

Table 2:The level of development of these initia-tives varies greatly from centre to centre,and the result in terms of number of en-terprises created, and particularly the na-ture of those enterprises (size, jobs, turno-ver, market strength) varies according tothe role, scale and resources which thecentres put into sel f -employmentschemes.

In order to make the range of enterprisecreation support schemes clearer, we shalldivide them into two groups: the first willinclude initiatives focusing on awareness-raising and the fostering of the entrepre-neurial spirit, which in some cases giverise to the creation of small enterprises;and the second will cover those initiativesdemanding greater commitment to thestudent entrepreneurs on the part of thecentre, which has led to the creation ofmore enterprises of larger size.

3.1. Awareness-raising activities andcreation of micro-enterprises

Most of the activities to support enterprisecreation carried out in the vocational train-ing centres are limited to awareness-rais-ing and the fostering of the culture ofenterprise. This means stimulating stu-dents’ entrepreneurial spirit through dis-cussions and courses led by either teach-ers at the centres, members of develop-

Figure 2:

Autonomous Community of the Basque Country

and Lifelong Education Council of theBasque Government, who confirmedthat the sample was representative forthe purposes of the study. Accordingto the Council and other sources con-sulted, the relations between enter-prises and training centres that wewished to evaluate (continuing train-ing, job training, training on demand,research, company participation incentre boards of management, sup-port given to centres in the form offunding or machinery, enterprise crea-tion, etc.), centred almost exclusivelyon the sample of 27 centres.

(6) Semi-guided interviews were heldin eight public and eight private cen-tres, all of them vocational trainingcentres. Three directors of IKASLANwere also interviewed, as was thePresident of HETEL and his predeces-sor in that office.


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small enterprises have been created, sevenof which are still operating. According todata supplied by Hernani Institutoa, itsstudents created 17 enterprises between1995 and 2000, generating 56 jobs.

In our view, the fact that 90 % of centresopting for this awareness-raising approachhave not created any enterprises shouldnot be seen in a negative light. It doesnot mean that programmes to promote theentrepreneurial spirit are a failure. Theireffectiveness and efficiency should not bemeasured by the immediate creation ofenterprises but by a broader range ofmedium and long-term indicators. In thefirst place, as some of the directors inter-viewed stressed, fostering the culture ofenterprise is not aimed exclusively atthose opting for self-employment, but hasa positive impact on students’ entrepre-neurial and innovative capacity in futurejobs working for others. As is pointed outin Araujo et al. (2001), while vocationaltraining students may not put into prac-tice an entrepreneurial idea that they havedeveloped in the classroom, it is likelythat the positive attitudes towards enter-prise creation that they acquire in thecentre will translate into new businessesin the future, when they are older. Thisopinion was expressed by a number ofthe directors of vocational training cen-tres interviewed.

Fundamentally, the centres that have cho-sen this approach to supporting enterprisecreation put forward two reasons for notmoving on to the next stage of collabo-rating with and helping students to setup businesses:

a) a high number of vocational trainingstudents find jobs, which suggests that fewwish to set up their own businesses;

b) there is no desire to duplicate servicesproviding support for entrepreneurs.Some centres do not see that they shoulddo the job of development workers, du-plicating the services of agencies whichfunction well already.

In our opinion, however, the fact thatthere are development agencies in theenvirons of centres should not be an ob-stacle to centres’ playing a more activerole in supporting students’ entrepre-neurial initiatives.

ment agencies, public agencies workingin the creation of enterprises, or employ-ers’ associations. If as a result of theseawareness-raising activities, students areinterested in creating an enterprise or wishto study its viability, they are directed tothe agencies and institutions specialisingin supporting founders of small busi-nesses (7). It is these bodies that will pro-vide support for those moving on to anactual enterprise creation project, sincetraining centres do not usually give sig-nificant systematic support to nascentbusinesses. In some cases, students aremerely given office accommodation at lowrent, the temporary use of some machin-ery or computers, and tutorial advice froma teacher.

Of the centres surveyed, 75 % restrictthemselves to a strategy of awareness-rais-ing, either on their own or with the helpof other institutions, and this seldom givesrise to the creation of enterprises. Of the26 centres in this category, only threestated that their students had created en-terprises in recent years: Jesús Obrero(Araba), San Jorge (Bizkaia) and HernaniInstitutoa (Gipuzkoa). The San Jorge deSanturce centre, in association with theDEMA-Enpresa Garapena Foundation andother bodies, carries out this work of sup-porting enterprise creation by analysingthe viability of projects. In this way, 12

Table 2:

Support by Basque vocational training centresfor the creation of enterprises by students

Fre- Percent-quency age

We have our own enterprise creation scheme 6 17.1 %

We work with a development agency or an institutionspecialising in the creation of enterprises 10 28.6 %

The creation of enterprises is not an aimpursued by this centre 3 8.5 %

We do not create enterprises, but we fosterthe entrepreneurial spirit 16 45.7 %

Source: Compiled by authors from surveys and interviews with directors of centres

(7) Mention should be made of casesin which collaboration is continualand habitual, such as the Usurbil cen-tre, which works with the CEI SaiolanEnterprise and Innovation Centre, theDiocesanas centre, which works withthe AJEBASK Association of YoungBasque Entrepreneurs and the devel-opment agency of the Vitoria localauthority, many Bizkaia centres whichwork with DEMA, the Txorierri cen-tre with a company called I+D, etc.


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3.2. Enterprises created with a ‘push’from a vocational training centre andlocal businesses

There is a smaller group of training cen-tres that have developed enterprise crea-tion schemes going beyond the fosteringof the entrepreneurial spirit and givingrise to the birth of enterprises on a size-able scale, which have initially provideda substantial number of jobs. These arethe initiatives of the private centres LeaArtibai and Somorrostro, and the publicBidasoa centre, the geographical locationof which is shown in detail on the fol-lowing map:

Figure 3:The initiatives of these three centres arevery similar to some university enterprisecreation schemes. The aspects commonto the three initiatives are as follows:

There is a close relationship between thetraining centre and local businesses,which enables it to identify unmet needsand opportunities for subcontracting.Many initial contacts with client compa-nies, for example, including businessideas that have then prospered, have notcome from the founders of the enterprisesthemselves, but from training centrestaff (8).

Support for the creation of enterprises isseen as an important aim and is firmlyrooted in the corporate culture of the cen-tres. Some research suggests that univer-sities with successful enterprise creationschemes regard these schemes as impor-tant, worthy of respect and central to thepurpose of a university (De la Sota, 2000;Meneses, 2001; Rubí, 2001; Tornatzky etal., 2002; Leiceaga, 2001; Ullastres, 2001),and the same can be said of the LeaArtibai, Somorrostro and Bidasoa Voca-tional Training Centres.

A tutorial scheme provides long-termmonitoring and support from professionalstaff at the centres for the new entrepre-neurs. The training centres have staff de-voted to promoting enterprises, and theyalso provide help with equipment, ma-chinery and infrastructure to student en-trepreneurs.

Centres foster the entrepreneurial spiritby establishing ways in which their stu-dents can see, learn from, appreciate and

Figure 3:

Location of the Somorrostro, Lea Artibai and BidasoaVocational Training Centres in the Basque Autono-mous Community

imitate former students who are settingup businesses or have already done sosuccessfully.

While the predominant economic sectorsthat surround and influence the centresdiffer considerably, the economic envi-ronment of all three is weak, so that theyare required to pursue a more activepolicy of support for new enterprises (9).According to Tormatzky et al. (2000),something similar happens at universitiesin the United States (10).

3.2.1. The experience of the LeaArtibai Vocational Training Centre

The Lea-Art ibai Technical Col lege(Bizkaia) is a non-profit-making coopera-tive. Besides compulsory vocational edu-cation, continuing training and job train-ing, it also teaches the Bachillerato andhas for the last few years been offeringuniversity courses. Since the centre wasstructured as a cooperative in 1976, it hasbelonged to the Mondragón CorporaciónCooperativa Group (MCC). This Groupincorporates over 150 enterprises and hasgrown into the largest industrial corpora-tion in the Basque Country, and the sev-

(8) The establishment of networkslinking researchers, entrepreneurs,suppliers and investors is also re-garded as a key factor in research onthe creation of enterprises in univer-sities. It is easier to establish networksif the university plays a very activepart in various voluntary bodies withlocal businesses and institutions(Numark, 2000; Sandel in, 2000;Tormatzky et al., 2002). The main dif-ference in respect of the vocationaltraining centres studied here is thatthese use such networks to find ideasand clients, while universities usethem principally to look for fundingto refine and check business ideasbefore launching them on the mar-ket.

(9) The economic environment of theSomorrostro centre has been affectedby a succession of crises in major in-dustries in the engineering and ship-building sectors to the west of Bil-bao. In the case of the Bidasoa cen-tre, besides the crisis in some tradi-tional local industries, the disappear-ance of European borders also led tothe disappearance of many jobs as-sociated with Customs activities in the1990s. And finally, in the case of LeaArtibai, fostering new enterprises isseen as a form of economic develop-ment in a weakly industrialised area.

(10) Except for Stanford, the universi-ties which stand out for their contri-bution to regional economic develop-ment are stimulated by weak regionalor state economies.


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local businesses, and the use of the train-ing centre’s infrastructure and machineryfor these new enterprise activities, meanthat it is possible to set up and consoli-date enterprises that could not be createdby a conventional development agencybecause of the nature of the technologyused and the market in question.

‘It’s not like going through an agencybecause if the new entrepreneurs have atechnical project, we have the necessarymaterials and machinery at the centre.Above all, the most valuable thing wehave is the connections with the localbusinesses that are their potential custom-ers. This is the greatest advantage over adevelopment agency.’ (Arizmendi, M. (12))

To date, five enterprises have been setup, and nine are currently in the nurserystage, involving a variety of projects suchas furniture manufacture, catamarans,plastic injection, rapid prototype casting,aluminium and fish-based foodstuffs (13).

Table 3.Support from the training centre for thedevelopment of new enterprise projectsfollows a process summarised in the fol-lowing table:

Table 4.As can be seen in Table 4, the process startsand ends with ways of fostering the entre-preneurial spirit and of attracting new en-trepreneurs. Besides motivation and aware-ness-raising courses (15), which are alsotaught in most other centres, a competi-tion is held for business ideas, and stu-dents are given information about enter-prise projects that are running (16). In thelast stage of the process, the entrepreneurswho have created or are creating enter-prises at the centre give an undertaking tofoster the local enterprise culture.

Many directors of vocational training cen-tres stated that it was difficult to motivatestudents to create enterprises where therewas no shortage of jobs, but it is believedat the Lea Artibai centre that the key tosuccessful motivation is to select studentswho are highly creative (17), to direct theirpotential towards the creation of enter-prises, and to arrange for entrepreneurspresent at the training centre to stimulatestudents to emulate them:

‘Over time, we identify a percentage ofpeople who are creative, have a need to

enth largest in Spain (MondragónCorporación Cooperativa, 2002). Relationsbetween Lea Artibai and local businessesare not limited to the enterprises in theCorporation, and comprise the provisionof a large number of hours of continuingtraining, technological services, participa-tion by various enterprises in its manage-ment bodies, and considerable ongoingfinancial support from the enterprises.

Support for the creation of new enter-prises with the assistance of training cen-tres is a key part of the corporate cultureof Mondragón Corporación Coopera-tiva (11) and of the Lea Artibai centre. Theimportance given to the development ofnew business activities in Lea Artibai isreflected partly in the mission statementof the centre itself, which gives equal sta-tus to this aim and other educational aims(Lea Artibai Ikastetxea, 2002).

In the mid-1990s there was a proposal toset up a local development agency in LeaArtibai. When this initiative failed, the Vo-cational Training Centre set about estab-lishing a foundation involving the localauthority of Markina and other local au-thorities in the area, with the aim of sup-porting the creation of local enterprises.

Some of the services provided by thefoundation to those setting up enterprisesare similar to those offered by other bod-ies: premises, free light and telephone, abursary of EUR 360 a month for new en-trepreneurs, advice and tutorial support,and so on. The differences from otherinstitutions devoted to promoting enter-prises derive from the synergies that ex-ist between the foundation and the LeaArtibai Vocational Training Centre. Theclose relationship between the centre and

Table 3.

Creation of enterprises at the Lea Artibai VocationalTraining Centre (14)

1998 1999 2000

No of enterprises created 1 2 2

No of jobs generated 9 7 9


(11) The first enterprise in this com-mercial group was in fact set up in1956 by five former students of theVocational School, currently theMondragón Higher Poly technicSchool, with the support of its direc-tor José María Arizmendiarreta. Otherenterprises in the group were set uplater in collaboration with varioustraining centres in the group.

(12) Interview on 16/07/2001 withMarkel Arizmendi, Director of HETEL(the network of privately establishedcentres), who is responsible for en-terprise development and polymer en-gineering at Lea Artibai.

(13) This is the only case among thoseexamined in which the person head-ing the new enterprise is a (female)teacher at the centre. This would ap-pear to be more usual in the univer-sity environment from the experiencesrelated in various publications and theemphasis that these place on the ob-stacles facing researchers and teach-ers as entrepreneurs (Tuominen, 2000;Churchwell, 2000; De la Sota, 2000;Blanco, 2000; Meneses, 2001)

(14) There are currently nine enter-prises in the nursery of the Lea ArtibaiVT Centre.

(15) The centre gives its students a 16-hour course in self-employment, de-voting two hours to motivation andawareness-raising, and the rest todefining the steps to be taken in draw-ing up an enterprise project. The cen-tre offers a similar course lasting 28hours to new entrepreneurs outsidethe centre.

(16) This information is spread via thecentre’s internal news bulletin, inclassrooms, in motivation and aware-ness-raising seminars, and informallythrough daily contact in the centre be-tween students and entrepreneurs.

(17) It should be pointed out in thiscontext that some vocational trainingcentres in the HETEL private networkhave developed and are using a pro-gramme called ‘Sormen-Crea’ to en-courage students’ creativity. SeeBasterretxea et al. (2002).


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create. This may be either in a cultural, asocial or an entrepreneurial field, butthere are people who have these quali-ties. If we can identify creative peopleworking in these fields and channel theminto creating enterprises, so that they seethat the centre gives them opportunitiesto be creative and create an enterprise,we shall succeed in our aim. If the train-ing centre acts as a beacon and its mostcreative students see that other youngpeople are developing enterprise projectsin the centre itself, we are helping thosestudents along the way.’ (Arizmendi,M. (18))

The second stage of the enterprise crea-tion process shown in Table 4 has onepeculiarity. Lea Artibai maintains collabo-ration agreements with a variety of localenterprises in order to generate businessideas. On some occasions the businessidea does not occur to the potential en-trepreneurs themselves but arises out ofthe centre thanks to its contacts with busi-ness:

‘The vocational training centre is in al-most daily touch with businesses throughtraining at the work place, continuingtraining, the provision of business serv-ices, etc. This makes it possible for eachparty constantly to learn about the other,as a result of which sectors and fields canbe identified for possible subcontractedwork. We start from the idea that if thecentre is dynamic and has a good knowl-edge of business, new areas of employ-ment and production can be identified.’(Arizmendi, M. (19))

One clear example of enterprise creationas a result of needs identified by the cen-tre among local companies is a businessproducing plastic injection moulds that isat the nursery stage:

‘From our contacts with enterprises suchas Maier, Cicaucho and Alzola, we calcu-lated that they were subcontracting morethan EUR 12 million each year for mouldsmade in Portugal. We saw the potentialfor creating an enterprise, but a study in-dicated that the weakest point would bethe absence of people trained in mould-making. The centre took up this challengeand we taught a special course in mould-making, but the next obstacle was thatthere was no enterprise development

group. We took a number of managementsteps, and three years ago an enterprisegroup was set up, composed of youngpeople working in other companies whowere enthusiastic about this new businessidea. The group is currently made up ofnine or ten people, and within a year theywill leave the enterprise nursery with anannual turnover of approximatelyEUR 180 000.’ (Arizmendi, M. (20))

It should be pointed out that in order todevelop this new enterprise, the LeaArtibai centre did not call on current or

Table 4.

Basic process of developing enterprise projectsat Lea Artibai

1. Attracting potential entrepreneurs1.1. Within the centre itself1.1.1. Motivation and awareness-raising course1.1.2. Regular information about enterprise projects1.1.3. Business ideas competition1.2. Outside the centre1.2.1. Enterprise initiatives competition1.2.2. Training conference for employers

2. Identifying business ideas2.1. Training in steps to be taken to set up an enterprise2.2. Collaboration agreements with businesses

3. Defining the idea3.1. Potential entrepreneur collates data3.2. General description of the idea

4. Deciding whether to take the idea further4.1. Checking against basic criteria to validate business idea

5. Developing the idea5.1. Organisation of the project5.2. Appropriate assessment of the requirements of the idea

6. Enterprise plan6.1. Developing the basic content6.2. Assessment of each specific case6.3. Collaboration agreements with BBK Gazte Lanbidean, BEAZ…

7. Long-term commitments7.1. Staff recruitment7.2. Commitment to enhancing local enterprise culture

Source: Lea Artibai Vocational Training Centre

(18) Op.cit.

(19) Íbid.

(20) Íbid.


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recently qualified students of the centre,but on former students already in work,who gave up their jobs and became en-trepreneurs. This profile of entrepreneurscoincides with that proposed by repre-sentatives of the Basque employers’ or-ganisation CONFEBASK and its Bizkaiacounterpart CEBEK for the award of as-sistance with enterprise creation (seeAraujo et al., 2001, p. 322). A number ofresearch reports on the profile of entre-preneurs confirm that new businesses aremore likely to succeed if the entrepre-neurs have experience of work. Previouswork experience enables entrepreneursto acquire technical knowledge and com-mercial and organisational skills, and toestablish contacts within the companywhere they have worked, and with its cli-ents and suppliers. Such knowledge, skillsand contacts help the entrepreneurs intaking business decisions (CODEX, 1998;De la Sota, 2000)

Contacts with local businesses needingsubcontractors enable new enterprises tospring up to meet the real needs of majorinitial clients. When a business has an ur-gent need for a local subcontractor or sup-plier, it may collaborate with the vocationaltraining centre and the new entrepreneursin launching the enterprise project. Forexample, the Maier, S. Coop companymade machinery available to new entre-preneurs at the Lea Artibai centre, whothen became its suppliers. The young en-trepreneurs also carried out six-monthwork placements at Maier S. Coop, therebygaining a thorough insight into the needsof their first business customer (21).

This kind of enterprise fits the classicnotion of spin-off, meeting the fundamen-tal requirements laid down by the Euro-pean Union in the EBN (European BICNetwork):

• creation of a new unit of economic ac-tivity arising out of one or more existingunits;

• generation of a new activity, either cre-ating a new autonomous business or ac-tivating a new product or service;

• support from the parent organisation.

In the light of other experiences in whichone enterprise collaborates in the crea-

tion of another, subcontracting some func-tion or activity, the spin-off activities pro-moted at the Lea Artibai centre in col-laboration with local businesses set outto provide new products or services lo-cally, thereby contributing to significantlocal development and to the generationof far more jobs than in simple cases ofsubcontracting.

Until such time as the young entrepre-neurs have decided to form a company,it is the centre which issues invoicesthrough a company called ‘Insertec’. Themoney generated by the activity is heldin trust by the centre until the entrepre-neurs have formed their own company.

The enterprises created at the Lea Artibaicentre have the added advantage that theycan use the machinery of the centre itselffor their productive activities. Given thehigh levels of investment required bysome enterprise initiatives, this possibil-ity of using the infrastructure of the train-ing centre is a crucial help to the entre-preneurs. Thanks to the protection andassistance of the centre, they can post-pone investment for a time, can work forcompanies using the centre machinery,and can examine in depth the real viabil-ity of the business, making products forcustomers without incurring excessiverisks (22). According to the managers ofthe training centre and the enterprisenursery, this use of the centre machineryby the entrepreneurs can also be of ad-vantage in training terms. It makes a posi-tive contribution in that it offers opportu-nities for practice and enables some ofthe technical and management problemsencountered by the young entrepreneursto be discussed in the classroom, therebydeveloping students’ creativity and per-mitting practical application of variousteaching subjects.

At Lea Artibai this support for enterprisecreation is seen as a way of developingthe local economy, which still has around20 % of its population working in agri-culture and fishing. The aim of the centreis to set up 15 enterprises by 2006, therebyhelping to strengthen the economic fab-ric of the area in the medium and longterm. This strengthening will also benefitthe centre since, as can be seen in thefinal stage of the process summarised inTable 4, the new enterprises make a long-

(21) This should be compared withuniversity experiences of enterprisecreation, such as that of Stanford Uni-versity. In that case, Numark (2000)points out the importance of a numberof businesses in Silicon Valley suchas HP, which he calls ‘anchor’ or sup-port companies and have trained newentrepreneurs and fostered the entre-preneurial spirit.

(22) In the literature examined, weonly encountered one explicit refer-ence to a similar policy. That is atStanford University, where equipmentis loaned when the University is notusing it, although entrepreneurs paythe operation costs of the equipment(Sandelin, 2000).


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term commitment to providing placementsfor students and to recruiting staff fromthe centre.

It is the aim of HETEL, the association ofprivate vocational training centres, to ex-tend this experience and others, such asthat of the Somorrostro training centre,to other centres, not only within the as-sociation but also to public centres be-longing to the Integral Network of Voca-tional Training Centres of Euskadi (23).Many of the directors whom we inter-viewed, both in public and in private cen-tres, had visited the Lea Artibai centre tolearn at first hand about its experience,and benchmarking activities are encour-aging dialogue, imitation and adaptationof experiences between centres.

3.2.2. The enterprise creation initia-tive at the Somorrostro VocationalTraining Centre

The Somorrostro Vocational Training Cen-tre (Bizkaia), a private initiative, is a largecentre attended by over 5 000 studentssplit between compulsory vocational edu-cation, continuing training and job train-ing. It has many strong links with localbusinesses. Besides providing a largenumber of hours of continuing training,it has in consequence also set up twocompanies (Gehilan and Laboradomo) toprovide a range of services to businesses,and is establishing a foundation to makeit possible for business to play a part inthe centre’s management bodies.

The origins of the policy of supportingenterprise creation at the SomorrostroVocational Training Centre are to be foundin a visit to micro-enterprise creation ini-tiative in Turin, organised by Bizkaia Pro-vincial Government in 1992. As a resultof that visit, the centre decided to fosterthe entrepreneurial spirit and to supportthe creation of enterprises by students:

‘The entreperneurial spirit is an asset toany society. If we foster this spirit, wecan help students successfully to createnew enterprises, or can help those takingjobs with other businesses to become en-trepreneurs themselves. Besides fosteringthis spirit, we want to aim at the actualcreation of enterprises. We see this as aminority interest because most people arelooking to be employed by a company,

and it is also a qualitative jump.’ (Ruiz,M. (24))

The programme of support for entrepre-neurs pursued at Somorrostro works witha number of bodies devoted to enterprisepromotion in Bizkaia (DEMA, the Cham-ber of Commerce, CEDEMI and BBKGaztelanbidean), and according to thedata supplied by the management of thecentre, it contributed in the period 1995to 2000 to the creation of twenty or soenterprises and the generation of 120jobs.

The methodology used at the Somorrostrocentre to support enterprise creation con-sists of three stages: motivation, trainingand launch.

1. Motivation: In this stage, the aim is tofoster the entrepreneurial spirit, for whichpurpose students take courses and holddiscussions with business people and pro-fessional staff from the centre or frominstitutions with which the centre haslinks. In addition to these discussions, thecentre holds competitions for entrepre-neurial ideas and invites students andformer students who have chosen self-employment to recount their experiencesas well, since these experiences have agreat motivational impact. At the end ofthis motivation stage, approximately 10 %of students are disposed to go on to thenext stage of training.

The Somorrostro centre is currently com-pletely revising the motivation stage, inorder to introduce a transverse courseelement called an ‘Entrepreneurial Work-shop’ from the academic year 2002/03 tofoster the entrepreneurial spirit from anearly age:

‘We do not believe that the entrepreneurialspirit should only be fostered in the finalyears of vocational training or during auniversity course. We believe that peo-ple’s entrepreneurial dimension has to bebrought out during ESO (compulsory sec-ondary education). From our knowledgeof other interesting experiences we havedesigned a syllabus in which there is amethodology to educate people’s spirit ofenterprise from the age of 12-13 years.Gradually, the teaching is intensified sothat when they are 20 years old they areentrepreneurs who have the training and

(23) The Integral Network of Voca-tional Training Centres covers thosecentres offering more than basic con-tinuing and job training.

(24) Interview of 23/07/2001 withMikel Ruiz, Director of the Somor-rostro Vocational Training Centre.


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resources necessary to put a business ideainto practice if they wish.’ (Ruiz, M. (25))

This ‘Entrepreneurial Workshop’ consistsof 18 hours of teaching, designing andsharing of entrepreneurial projects anddevelopment of ideas which may be im-plemented in later stages of training.

2. Training: Students who wish to pursuethe programme after completing the mo-tivation stage receive theoretical and prac-tical training, carry out feasibility studies,explore the market, draw up financialplans, and so on.

‘Last year we trained around 50 peopleand carried out 12 or 13 feasibility stud-ies. In total we must have conducted be-tween 80 and 100 feasibility studies, andaround 14 of the enterprises that havebeen created are still operating.’ (Ruiz,M. (26))

3. Launch: As in other centres, the youthand lack of experience of the entrepre-neurs means that the protection offeredthem is greater than in other institutions.Moreover, links between the training cen-tre and local businesses facilitate commer-cial activities and access to an enterprise’sfirst customers:

‘We support the enterprises that are setup for between three and five years,which is something that other institutionsnormally do not do. By support we meanfinding customers, whom they should beable to retain subsequently for themselves.Through the centre itself we try to find aclient list from among the five hundredor so companies with which we haveregular contact.’ (Ruiz, M. (27))

Many of the ideas that have given rise tothe enterprises created in Somorrostrohave not come from the entrepreneurs buthave been suggestions made by the train-ing centre itself. Some of these ideas havebeen the fruit of the centre’s contacts withlocal companies and public agencies:

‘Through our formal and informal linkswe observed that the large companies, thego-ahead companies, preferred to subcon-tract activities rather than recruiting staff.Locally, the three major go-ahead com-panies are Petronor, the Port of Bilbaoand the gas plant IGCC. These projects,

together with the socio-cultural ‘BilbaoTourism’ business that we still need todevelop and make more effective, are thefour driving forces of the future.’ (Ruiz,M. (28)).

According to the director of the centre,the main difficulty is not generating ideasbut finding students who are ready to takeon the risk of setting up a business:

‘We need to change students’ outlook, andthis is difficult. This is the task of the workteam responsible, but it is hard to makestudents understand that if three or fourof them join together and form a smallenterprise they will have many more op-portunities, if they are good profession-als, of being subcontracted, and greaterstability of employment than if they golooking for work individually.’ (Ruiz,M. (29))

3.2.3. The experience of the BidasoaVocational Training Centre using theURRATSBAT programme

The Bidasoa Vocational Training Centre,situated in Irun (Gipuzkoa), is a publicinstitution offering compulsory vocationaleducation as well as continuing trainingand job training. This establishmentteaches upper intermediate and advancedcourses in the following fields: manufac-ture of machinery, timber and furniture,electricity-electronics, and constructionand civil engineering. It maintains closeties with local companies, particularly inthe context of continuing training.

The culture of the centre also supportsthe creation of enterprises by its students,although this support encounters someadditional difficulties because of the pub-lic status of this vocational training cen-tre. The first problem is less flexibility oflabour, which makes it difficult to recruitstaff specifically to foster new enterpriseinitiatives, a problem which arises alsowhen a public centre wants to conductresearch or to provide services for busi-nesses.

Furthermore, public centres may encoun-ter more obstacles than private centres incarrying out certain activities. Initiativessuch as that of the private centre LeaArtibai, where entrepreneurs can workusing the centre’s equipment, and where

(25)Ibid.

(26) Íbid.

(27) Íbid.

(28) Íbid.

(29) Íbid.


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it is the centre which issues invoices un-til the entrepreneurs have formed a com-pany, would be more difficult to arrangein a public centre.

In view of the special difficulties facingthese centres, the Department of Educa-tion of the Basque Government set up theURRATSBAT programme with the aim ofencouraging the creation of enterprisesin public vocational training centres withstudents who have completed their train-ing. A number of different centres belong-ing to the public network IKASLAN takepart in this programme: Bidasoa, Tolosa,Bergara and Usurbil in Gipuzkoa, Bara-kaldo and Erandio in Bizkaia, andMendizabala in Araba. In order to helpentrepreneurs in these centres, there is astandard methodology laid down, and aperson appointed with this responsibil-ity. Each centre sets out to form twogroups of three or four students everyyear. These students go through a finalthree-month stage of motivation and gen-erat ion of business ideas, and theURRATSBAT programme and the centressupport the prospective entrepreneurs byproviding premises and technical assist-ance while they are investigating whethertheir project is viable. The intention is thatthey should formally establish consoli-dated micro-enterprises after a period ofone year.

Of all the initiatives for the creation ofenterprises by students that have comeout of URRATSBAT, that of the Bidasoacentre stands out, not because it has cre-ated a large number of enterprises butbecause it has generated a large numberof jobs in the three enterprises which ithas launched.

Table 5.As at the Somorrostro and Lea Artibai cen-tres which have already been discussed,the Bidasoa Vocational Training Centreand local companies are the driving forcebehind these enterprises. A good exam-ple is the enterprise created in 2000 towork for the kitchen furniture manufac-turer XEY:

‘The aim of the seven carpenters was toset up a business to assemble kitchen fur-niture. The college talked to Muebles XEYin order to create this enterprise. XEY tookin the students and trained them over sev-eral months, teaching them about the

quality standards which it demanded, theoutput expected, etc. They then set them-selves up as a partnership and startedworking for XEY, assembling kitchens innumerous blocks of flats in various citiesthroughout Spain.’ (Mujika, I. (30))

The management of the Bidasoa centrerealise that it is difficult to motivate stu-dents to create enterprises in occupationswith full employment, and trusts like theother two centres examined in the powerof emulation exercised by successful en-trepreneurs over the other students. Thesuccess of earlier enterprises can providearguments that will convince new entre-preneurs:

‘Practically 100 % of students find jobswhen they finish their placements in com-panies. This makes it difficult for studentswho want to set up a business, and as inthe case referred to above of assemblingXEY furniture, they have to be preparedto spend several months being trainedwithout pay in the client company. Thesuccess that they are achieving, and thefact that each of these workers has beenearning between EUR 3 000 andEUR 3 600 a month in recent months,which is appreciably more than theywould be paid working for others, is anargument that we can use with other stu-dents.’ (Iruretagoiena, J.I. (31))

The use of spin-off and collaboration withexisting companies to create new enter-prises has great advantages, as has beenseen in the various experiences discussed,but depending on a single client also posesa serious risk for a new enterprise. In thecase of the enterprise created in Bidasoa,the problem was aggravated by the exclu-sive agreement demanded by XEY:

Table 5.

Creation of enterprises at the Bidasoa centre

1997 2000 2001

No of enterprises created 1 1 1

No of jobs generated 22 7 4


(30) Interview of 26/07/2001 with IñakiMujika, Director of the Usurbil Voca-tional Training Centre and of theIKASLAN GIPÚZKOA association ofpublic centres.

(31) Telephone interview of 10/02/2002 with Jose Ignacio Iruretagoiena,Director of Bidasoa Vocational Train-ing Centre.


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‘To start with, XEY demanded loyalty tothat company. XEY said that it had in-vested heavily in the training of theseseven entrepreneurs, that it had appointedits best professionals to train them, andthat it would not allow them to fit othermanufacturers’ kitchens. This demand hasbeen relaxed over time.’ (Iruretagoiena,J.I. (32))

In another of the enterprise initiativeslaunched by the Bidasoa centre, beforeURRATSBAT came into existence, the cen-tre itself identified a business opportunity,generated the business idea and organ-ised a course of job training to provideself-employment for the unemployed inthe locality:

‘We observed that many of the sofas soldin major stores were manufactured inAndalucía, and we thought that they couldbe manufactured here as well. We organ-ised a course for the unemployed in thelocality. Six of the students, some of themolder and with little chance of finding ajob, established a cooperative, TapiceríasTxingudi, set out to manufacture made-to-measure sofas, particularly for yachtsand other boats, and have been success-ful. They have expanded, and two otherbusinesses have grown out of this firstenterprise, now employing 22 people.’(Iruretagoiena, J.I. (33))

A third enterprise should be added tothese two. Geotop was set up in late 2001by four students to offer geodesic andtopographic services, and recently re-ceived the three-star ‘Basque CountryYoung Enterprise Award’ from the Asso-ciation of Young Basque Entrepreneurs,AJEBASK. The Bidasoa centre is support-ing this project and others that are underconsideration by offering advice from itsprofessional staff and placing the equip-ment and materials of the centre at thedisposal of the entrepreneurs for one year.

4. Conclusions

The level of development of enterprisecreation support programmes varieswidely in the centres studied, and the re-sult in terms of number of enterprises cre-ated and above all the nature of thoseenterprises (size, number of jobs, turno-

ver, market strength) varies according tothe role, scale and resources which thecentres put into sel f -employmentschemes.

Although fostering the entrepreneurialspirit does not lead to the creation of en-terprises in the majority of the vocationaltraining centres studied, it can have otherbenefits. On the one hand, fostering anentrepreneurial culture will have a posi-tive impact on students’ entrepreneurialand innovative capacity in future jobsworking for others, and on the other,while vocational training students may notput into practice a business idea that theyhave developed in the classroom, it islikely that the positive attitudes towardsenterprise creation that they have ac-quired will translate into new businessesin the future, when they are older.

The most important factor in fostering anentrepreneurial spirit is the establishmentof means whereby students can see, learnfrom, appreciate and imitate former stu-dents who are setting up businesses orhave already done so successfully. Themotivational effect of these local experi-ences is greater than that of the methodused by most of the centres studied tofoster an entrepreneurial culture: classesand lectures given by teachers, membersof development agencies, public institu-tions associated with enterprise creation,and employers’ associations.

The infrastructure used to nurture enter-prises and training programmes for en-trepreneurs can be and are easily copiedby other training centres. However, someof the factors which in our opinion mostprobably explain the success of the ini-tiatives studied, are far more difficult toreproduce. These factors are the estab-lishment of networks with companies andinstitutions that will provide new initia-tives with support, and the creation of aculture supportive of enterprise amongteachers, administrators and students inthe training centre.

The experiences of centres such as LeaArtibai, Somorrostro and Bidasoa demon-strate that it is possible to launch enter-prise projects that generate numerous jobsand wealth, if these projects are supportedwith the equipment and infrastructure ofthe vocational training centre in close

(32) Íbid.

(33) Íbid.


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collaboration with local businesses. Theuse of the centre equipment allows thenew entrepreneurs to explore the viabil-ity of industrial projects without initiallyincurring high investment costs and risks.Contacts between centres and businessesmake it possible to identify unmet busi-ness needs and opportunities for subcon-tracting, so that new enterprises springup to meet the real needs of major initialclients. We believe that these experiencescan serve as the model for other voca-tional training centres and universitiesinterested in fostering enterprise creation.

Compulsory vocational education studentsare not best suited to the creation of newenterprises because of their youth andlack of experience. Moreover, if most ofthose who successfully complete coursesfind jobs easily, it makes it difficult tomotivate them to opt for self-employment.Although some experiences show that itis possible to achieve this motivation sothat young students set up businesses, anumber of the centres surveyed success-fully open their offer of support to olderentrepreneurs, especially former studentsof the centre who have experience ofworking, and to students on job-trainingcourses. Opening up to older prospec-tive entrepreneurs is to be recommendedalso in university enterprise supportschemes.

Where there is a group of students ill-equipped to manage an enterprise butwith a viable business idea, vocationaltraining centres may launch a new enter-prise and employ those students, copy-ing the example of universities such asGlasgow, Stanford, Chicago and Barce-lona. Where a member of one of theseuniversities has a good business idea but

lacks management skills, the universitysupports the creation of the enterprise andengages a management team.

We believe that it would be particularlyappropriate to export the spin-off initia-tives developed in some of the centresstudied. Although these experiences havebeen carried out in collaboration withexpanding businesses to create new prod-ucts and services, the literature on spin-off indicates that initiatives of this type,but with a more defensive profile, can besuited to businesses in difficulties. Ratherthan allowing numerous highly trainedstaff with wide experience of sectors cur-rently facing difficulties simply to be laidoff, public institutions could support en-terprise creation, together with trainingcentres and the businesses affected, bylaunching schemes to encourage andmotivate these skilled workers to set uptheir own enterprises.

Some enterprise support programmes invocational training centres, such as theURRATSBAT programme of the BasqueGovernment, give priority to entrepre-neurs working in fields in which it isharder to find employment. We believethat this focus is not the most appropri-ate and that the criteria for fostering andsupporting new enterprise initiativesshould be the potential of the market andthe capacity to create strong competitivebusinesses, rather than whether potentialentrepreneurs are likely to find jobs work-ing for others. If centres genuinely wantto encourage self-employment and tomake students see the creation of enter-prises as prestigious, we do not think itright to give the impression that this routeis an option primarily for students whoare unlikely to find jobs.

Albert, C. et al. La transición de la escuela almercado de trabajo en España: años noventa.Papeles de Economía Española, 2000, No 86, p. 42-58.

Alonso García, M.A. Tipos de Formación Profesio-nal: percepción de la utilidad. European JournalVocational Training,, 2000, No 19, p. 54-63.

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