Empowering Youth through Entrepreneurship Education: Fostering Critical Thinking and Lifelong Learning through the Assessment Process

Youth agency refers to the capacity of young people to claim autonomy and drive meaningful changes in their personal lives, communities, and society, enabling them to shape their own developmental paths. In this context, entrepreneurship competencies, aimed at ensuring equal opportunity, access to the labor market, and inclusion, can serve as a key facilitator of youth agency. New perspectives on entrepreneurship education emphasize fostering a sense of initiative, empowering learners to act on ideas and opportunities to generate financial, cultural, or social value for themselves and others. As a result, entrepreneurship education has expanded globally, offering inclusive, high-quality learning opportunities across formal, non-formal, and informal contexts. Moreover, it promotes self-reflection, which is essential for enhancing economic performance and social cohesion, particularly for individuals at risk of exclusion. Critical thinking, a core competence highlighted in European frameworks, involves recognizing limitations in knowledge and addressing biases while fostering creativity to generate new ideas. This study introduces a set of tools and instruments designed for assessing and self-assessing soft skills within entrepreneurship education environments characterized by informal learning and challenge-based pedagogical approaches. We argue that these tools can effectively support young individuals during transitional phases and help them define their individual developmental trajectories.