School leavers should be encouraged to become entrepreneurs

The Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association (ISME) believes school leavers should be encouraged to pursue entrepreneurship as a career avenue in Ireland.

ISME has called on Government to include entrepreneurial education as a means of promoting enterprise culture across the country.

The Association believes education should be about creating an entrepreneurial philosophy and the Irish school system should work to nurture ambitious pupils with business acumen to realise their potential.

Mark Fielding, CEO, ISME, said: “ISME has long been calling for enterprise education to be introduced at primary school level and promoted throughout the education cycle.

“Starting your own business should be presented as a viable, and attractive, alternative to simply seeking a job.

“Ireland has always been hailed as an entrepreneurial nation but our education system must now do its part.

“There is currently a serious shortage of apprentices being trained and Government has been negligent in addressing this issue.

“We will soon find ourselves struggling to recruit construction workers and tradespeople from overseas in an attempt to fill the vacancies that we should have been training our young people for.

“Government can’t afford to ignore this issue any longer, emergency measures must be taken.

“We would also encourage school-leavers to consider a career within the SME sector. Small and medium businesses offer opportunities for mentoring, hands-on experience and work variety that simply do not exist in what can be a regimented, bureaucratic world of big business.

“SME staff have much greater scope to make their mark on a business and to have their ideas heard and talents utilised than their counterparts in large corporates who often are little more than a number to management.”



Image: Wen Shi

Date published 26 Aug 2015 | Last updated 26 Aug 2015