A MAJOR £2.5m initiative aims to nurture the region’s next generation of fledgling entrepreneurs.

Regeneration body the Northwest Development Agency is funding the establishment of Enterprise Hubs in 13 Further Education Colleges, including five around Merseyside and Cheshire.

The three-year programme proposes to introduce young people to the concept of enterprise in schools that will offer an “entrepreneurial route” that can be followed through to university.

Colleges also propose to widen their remit and involve local communities to encourage an enterprise ethic and also enable the unemployed to improve their own skills to obtain work.

The hubs will work with primary and secondary schools to help embed enterprise within the curriculum, and beyond into local communities.

Not only will the initiative aim to instil enterprise in pupils and adults, but it also hopes to improve the enterprise skills of teachers and tutors to facilitate pupils’ journeys on the enterprise highway.

Initial targets include plans to encourage almost 500 adults to undertake work-based training and 15,000 pupils aged under 16 to develop enterprise skills beyond statutory education.

The five regional FE colleges participating in the programme are Liverpool Community College, Southport College, Warrington Collegiate, West Cheshire College and Wirral Metropolitan College.

Each will appoint an enterprise hub co-ordinator who will formulate their own programme to involve pupils, the community and businesses in the drive to encourage an entrepreneurial mindset in the next generation of potential business leaders and creators.

Sue Greenhalgh, Liverpool Community College assistant principal curriculum, who is overseeing their programme, admitted: “We are very excited about this because we do a lot of partnership work with schools, mostly secondary schools.

“We are excited by the idea of contributing to the community, and enterprise starting at primary school for a seamless journey through education to employment.

“The idea now is to pull this out more strategically for the city.”

She explained: “We have three schools we work with already: New Heys, Archbishop Blanch and Childwall Sports College.

“We will work with their feeder primary schools and hopefully their parents and communities in trying to get them more skills to get work and get them to think about business start-ups. I think it is going to be very exciting – it’s showing joined-up thinking.”

Muffins will form the basis of instilling enterprise within youngsters at Southport College.

Co-ordinator Rosalind Millington explained: “We are looking at a muffin day where people will be given a brief in the morning to source ingredients for a muffin, make the muffin, make a box and decorate it and put the muffin in it.

“Then they will present in the form of a Dragons’ Den arrangement and explain how they put everything together, how much it cost and who was the team leader.”

The proposal is to give youngsters an insight into the building blocks of business and what is involved in bringing a product to market.

Mrs Millington said: “I am aiming to establish better links with secondary schools, but also to work with children from the age of five in the primary schools.

“We want to instil a culture of lifelong learning and culture change ideas about enterprising individuals and the concept of becoming enterprising individuals.” In addition to the muffin day proposal, Mrs Millington said: “With our social enterprise head on, we want to do some work with fair trade products, looking at the benefits to the people who grow the ingredients.”

Alongside these initiatives, Mrs Millington plans to involve college staff in the process: “I am looking at continual professional development for staff in the college so they are aware of how to integrate enterprise into their subject areas.”

But Mrs Millington is realistic about what can and cannot be achieved during the three-year programme: “Some of these people will go on to run their own business and we are happy to help iron out some of the risks or make them more aware of the risks. We don’t want to make them all into budding entrepreneurs, but we want to equip people who will go into business.”

At West Cheshire College, Ruth Jones is planning a two-fold strategy. First, she said, it is vital to embed enterprise in what the college does: “We work with a lot of employers and help people with redundancy programmes. Most of our students have visits to businesses and we have a very extensive work experience programme to give skills for work placement.”

The college is working closely with Chester Chamber of Commerce.

Mrs Jones said the second remit was more outward facing: “We already work in some of the more deprived areas, particularly primary schools. We work with parents, looking at literacy and numeracy, and we want to make our activities more enterprise focused to take skills into the wider community.”

Links with partner secondary schools are seen as essential to encouraging an enterprising ethos and the college is considering inter-school competitions.

Mrs Jones said: “We are trying to reach the wider community. We have a lot to achieve in three years. Some of it is there, but we are looking at where we are and where we can make an impact quickly.

“We want to make this sustainable and change people’s way of thinking so that when the project finishes everything is so embedded and ingrained that it carries on.

“We have 20,000 learners and only 2,500 are 16-19-year-olds. We must make sure we reach everybody, not just a narrow target area, including employers, unemployed, Neets (Not in Employment, Education or Training), adult returners, everyone we work with. Not just students up to 19-years-old.”

Sue Higginson, at Wirral Metropolitan College, sees the project as an essential tool in helping young people embrace the notion of entrepreneurship.

“The aim is to raise aspirations of young people and help them develop entrepreneurial skills. We can help them discover the journey of entrepreneurship and businesses. It will give youngsters the opportunity to think about themselves as an entrepreneur, as well.”

No-one was available for comment from Warrington Collegiate.

Jane Worthington is the NWDA project sponsor for Enterprise Hubs, and will liaise between all 13 North West colleges and the agency.

She explained that it involves immense work in co-ordinating the efforts of each college to try and deliver an enterprising culture among them and their partners.

Mrs Worthington said: “We will be working with a mixture of schools on the issue of being able to take risks and manage risks where appropriate, and embedding that into lessons and behaviours in people.

“There will be expectations around what colleges do, but it is very much about developing behaviours and culture.”

Mrs Worthington added: “All the hub co-ordinators have already met to discuss the way forward.”

She said they are “a really good bunch” but added she expects great things from Merseyside.

“Merseyside has always been enterprising. Manchester is quite enterprising as well, but there is a raw culture and really creative people on Merseyside.

“The region is not only enterprising, but it has a creativity with it. Merseyside has a colour and a personality and the hubs will build on that.”

She said: “We hope when it finishes, the enterprise culture continues. And the hope is that this will spill over into other colleges.”

NWDA chief executive Steven Broomhead explained the wider implications for Enterprise Hubs: “An effective labour market is an essential ingredient of a healthy economy.

“The NWDA works closely with regional partners to develop the educational infrastructure which will inspire and develop the skills of the region’s future workforce from an early age.

“The Hubs project will ensure enterprise is seen as an exciting career option, to raise aspirations of children, young people and adults, helping to develop a ‘can do’ culture.”

Mr Broomhead added: “The agency has a strong commitment to promoting enterprise across the region, boosting business start-ups and regional productivity.

“This will ensure there is sufficient supply of labour with the right skills, attitudes and ambition, to meet the demand for employers, grow key sectors, increase innovation and drive up enterprise.

“A well-trained, educated and skilled workforce also means both reduced unemployment and increased pay, which improves the quality of life of those living in the North West.”