YES, AN-EDUCATION

Les cast a jaudiced eye over modern teaching...

The other day I was reading an interesting article in the Eastern Daily Press written by Dick Palmer. I rather like that, Dick not Richard. This suggests to me a man who is not too full of his own importance. Dick Palmer is Principal of City College Norwich and he was talking about education. He referred to a view expressed sometime ago by Sir Richard Branson that 'both secondary and university education fail to foster entrepreneurial ambition' I have to say I go along very much with that.

It seems to me that our young people are encouraged to take with them when they go to school a wheelbarrow. The object being that, when they leave, they can then wheel away a barrow load of A levels and O levels all of which is highly commendable. After all, if you want to work in a Bank for example you won't get far with-out some of these.

Talking of Banks, however, we live in a different world to-day than we did in the past. Then you had a job for life; to-day you can start at the Bank on a Monday and be declared redundant by the Thursday. Well not quite but I'm sure you get my drift.

Give me someone who has by all means any number of A and O levels. This clearly indicates to me that this person has something in their heads called brains. There is, however, another part of their body which interests me and I wonder if this part of the anatomy receives the attention it should? It is this that I'm sure Sir Richard Branson has in mind. I'm talking about the Stomach! And it is your stomach just as much as your head that you will need if you are to make any progress in the world we live in to-day. You have to ask yourself do I have the stomach to face up to reality when things are not always going the way you want them to.

How often do you read of Entrepreneurs who didn't succeed first time around but had to roll up their sleeves and start again? And what about some of to-days well known Authors who, when they started out, had their manuscripts rejected time and time again by Publishers? If at first you don't succeed! Yes easier said than done. But what we need in to-days world, more than ever, are people who are prepared not just to go out there looking for jobs which may not be there but to start up their own business, the Entrepreneurs of the future.

To do that of course you will need a head for business but equally, and may-be more importantly, you will need the Stomach to fight on when you might think the world is against you? And if you have that, then I am not sure if that determination was something you acquired at the same time as you acquired your academic qualifications.

Les Lawrence