Branson attacks lack of business lessons at school
SIR Richard Branson has urged Britain’s schools to ‘come up to date’ – and devote more time to teaching entrepreneurship.
His call comes as figures from the National Union of Teachers suggest that more than 50 per cent of teachers in England are thinking of quitting in the next two years, with 61 per cent blaming an excessive workload.
Branson, who claims current teaching methods are ‘of the 19th Century’, told The Mail on Sunday: ‘I wish schools could be a bit more involved in trying to teach entrepreneurship and inspire kids at school.’
He said the environment in Britain is fantastic for small businesses at the moment, and added: ‘Britain is more entrepreneurial than France and Germany put together.’ But he complained that schools do not give students a taste of that while they are at school.
‘That would very much help them decide which direction they want to go in life,’ he said.
The NUT will lobby Parliament on November 18 about what it calls an education funding crisis, and hopes to persuade MPs that freezing school funding is wrong ‘when pupil numbers are rising while teacher recruitment and retention is falling’. Branson’s damning verdict on the education system comes after the Government failed to deliver an enterprise adviser for every school by September.
In an interview with The Mail on Sunday ahead of the Election, Lord Young – then David Cameron’s enterprise adviser – discussed plans for this and for a new ‘enterprise passport’ scheme to recognise activities outside the classroom, such as voluntary work and sports achievements.
He said at the time: ‘I think it will take us a while to do’, but added: ‘The advisers will start from next September.’ He said that enterprise passports would be introduced in 2016.
The Government’s new Careers and Enterprise Company, headed by Christine Hodgson, chairwoman of management consultancy Capgemini’s UK board, is tasked with delivering the schemes. Lord Young is a deputy chairman.
It has revealed it started to work with 28 Local Enterprise Partnerships on the adviser scheme in September, but 12 others, including Coventry & Warwickshire and Greater Manchester, are listed as ‘not participating yet’.
LEPs vary greatly in size and resources, but are increasingly expected to become powerful players in Chancellor George Osborne’s ‘devolution revolution’.
Neeta Patel, chief executive of the New Entrepreneurs Foundation, a charity focused on future business leaders, said: ‘Schools are busy, businesses are busy. Teachers generally don’t have business experience and are nervous about it. It doesn’t neatly fit into schools’ pedagogy of learning.
‘I’ve said to Lord Young, “Yes, it inspires children when they see someone from their school who has started a business, but it’s not education, it’s inspiration”.’
She added: ‘This is my view, but I think governments have a view that if you push more into schools somehow you’ll have better quality students coming out, and they don’t understand the stress schools are under. I think some schools are really struggling.
‘It needs a rethink, how we introduce enterprise education into schools. Having an enterprise adviser would form part of that strategy – having speakers forms a part of it, but it’s not the end of it.’