Since 2005 when I first appeared on the BBC's Dragons' Den I have become increasingly aware of the interest and enthusiasm for business among young people. My office receives hundreds of messages every week asking about every aspect of business from how to patent an idea to how to raise seed finance.
It is very clear that there is loads of enthusiasm out there but it's desperately in need of direction. Schools just don't seem to have the resources or willingness to encourage young entrepreneurial talent so I've joined forces with the government to launch a National Enterprise Academy.
The aim is to help young people become entrepreneurs and to encourage a change of mindset from a self-deprecating ‘can I?' attitude to an affirmative ‘I can' outlook. Since the announcement the interest generated across the UK has been incredible we've already started receiving applications from thousands of teenagers.
The proposed Academy aims to make a difference to a wide range of individuals at different stages in their careers and with different learning needs. The two key groups of learners and those who will be targeted in the first instance, both fall into the 16-19 age range:
- Group A will consist of learners who are not attracted to higher education, but who have the clear intention to establish a business or possibly to grow an existing business. They will be looking for a fast track to business start-up
- Group B will consist of those learners who are potentially interested in higher education, but whose longer-term objective is a career in business, owning or running their own business or seeking a role within a business
Other target groups will include:
- Those aged over 19 who are already involved in running a business or aspiring to do so; their objective will be fast-track learning to avoid failure or handle growth
- Those aged 14-16 who are disengaged from adult learning but show enterprising qualities; they would attend short courses at the Academy to raise their aspirations and give them a taste for an alternative route
- Finally, there will be teachers and lecturers from further education, higher education and schools, who want to embed enterprise in their own establishment, or to deliver a course endorsed by the Academy
When it opens in September 2009, the national hub will be based in the south-east, with another to be based in Manchester to open in 2010. The Academy will be made as accessible as possible, spread further throughout England with an online presence, and satellite academies in 7 other regions.
I'm keen to make use of the rich expertise of others to develop the NEA as a centre of excellence. I want it to become the beating heart of enterprise across the country, pulling together all the strands of other enterprise organisations and developing a unique curriculum that can be rolled out nationwide. We have already had interest from universities who want to involve their MBA students in a mentoring scheme with our younger students; the possibilities for supporting the Academy are endless.
Forming an integral part of the recent white paper on enterprise, the Prime Minister's support for the Academy has certainly accelerated the project but this is an initiative that I was determined to implement regardless of the support that I received but obviously it is a great deal easier to make progress when you have the support of the prime minister! This is about revolutionising the way we think, about making education relevant to the real world.
We're going to teach students practical business skills; their talents will be developed so they can go straight out into the workplace and prosper. There are many business colleges in the UK, but none that take such a fundamentally innovative approach to enterprise learning all of the teachers within the Academy will have been in business, they'll have been there and done it, all the theory the students will learn will be through practical experience.
The first group of graduates will have unique opportunities to enter the workplace, through the web of corporate support that surrounds the Academy. But I hope that many will choose to start their own businesses, and go on to be the employers of the future when the Academy succeeds enterprise will be a viable career option for young people, who will have the confidence to start their own businesses and make their dreams become reality.
