Jo Deblaere, Chairman, JA Europe, 2. COO, Accenture Caroline Jenner, CEO, JA Europe leverage education technologies and train more teachers. By teaming up with others through initiatives such as EE-HUB.EU and the Pact4Youth, for example, we know we can make an even bigger difference. JA’s member organisations are catalysts on the ground: their work with thousands of teachers, volunteers from the local community, businesses, NGOs and policy-makers is actively contributing to entrepreneurship education’s stealthy 2016 was a challenging year for Europe. progress. This year we saw how the active Faced with terrorist incidents and uneasy involvement of MEPs and MPs can raise politics, we have had much to distract us awareness; people in government at all from the youth unemployment statistics. levels are responding to results from the 昀椀eld. The average in Europe in October 2016 Already, more than half of EU member states was around 20%. In Spain, it rose to 43% made entrepreneurship a top priority in their and 46% in Greece. Young people are on national curriculum: 11 have a complete and the front line when crisis hits the labour comprehensive strategy. market and we cannot pretend that this is a temporary problem. Improving employability Our partnerships with the business and job creation in Europe has become an community are a key success factor. They are emergency. thought leaders as well as networkers. Their employee volunteers are coaches, mentors We can’t agree more with Commissioner and sector specialists. As they interact with Navracsics when asking “what are we waiting teachers and young people, they share their for?” Investing in youth has to stay a top work experience and expertise. They bring priority. We need more entrepreneurs and the real world into the classroom, helping new, growing businesses and these, in turn, to raise students’ awareness of what the need skilled and enterprising employees. modern work environment is like. By strengthening our programmes and increasing their reach, we can be part of the At JA, we believe education that matters solution. Our efforts are centred on innovative is education that helps young people turn collaborations to drive impact research, ideas into action. JA EUROPE / Annual Report 2016 5