CLASS ACT : NEW GENERATION

FCJ Bunclody, winners of the senior category who produced an introductory DVD for incoming students to the school.

Secondary Students Participate in the Student Entrepreneurship Programme. Use Celtic enterprise logo in collage

Entrepreneurial students and teachers come together through an innovative project called celtic enterprises. Niamh MacSweeney reports.

Education is playing a substantial role in entrepreneurship and now students from Ireland and Wales are benefiting from an exciting and innovative project called Celtic Enterprises. A pilot European project funded under Interreg IIIA, the purpose of the programme is to give entrepreneurship experience to second level students and to provide teachers will the skills and experience to teach entrepreneurship as a subject. According to Breege Cosgrave, Project Manager of Celtic Enterprise not everybody is a born entrepreneur but create the right environment and they can develop into one. “We asked ourselves; how do you create an entrepreneurial culture within the region and we decided that the school sector is the ideal place to start,” she says.

Vision And Execution

The Celtic Enterprise project emerged through collaboration between Wexford County Enterprise Board, Wexford Enterprise Centre (now part of Innovation Wexford) and Careers Wales West. In Ireland a separate non-profit company, funded through a combination of corporate and European funding was established to manage the programme. The vision and aim of Celtic Enterprise is “promoting entrepreneurship in schools through real business experience.” It focuses on sharing best practice and connecting teachers and students through information, communication technologies and exchange visits.

Obtaining funding has ensured that the programme has been very successful. “Suddenly we had development funds which meant we could start running the basic student programme, getting the children involved in mini enterprises, setting up the business, and also provide exchange activities and training,” Cosgrave explains.

She explains further “it facilitated us to send coordinators out to visit the schools, visiting three times throughout the programme. These are structured visits, helping students to work as teams, helping them to trouble shoot and ensuring that both teachers and students perform well.

Unique Teaching Programme

Once funding was secured the project was taken to the next level by introducing certified training, which enables teachers to deliver enterprise in the classroom. Celtic Enterprises is the only programme in Ireland to provide a 3rd level qualification for teachers to teach enterprise. This qualification was developed in conjunction with Waterford Institute Technology. The programme consists of 20 modules covering a mix of business, management and professional development skills that incorporate the latest teaching methodologies. Thirty-one teachers have now taken part in this element of the programme.

According to Cosgrave “the structure of the programme is unique because 70% of the teachers involved are now looking at their teaching philosophy and questioning whether or not the way they teach is appropriate to teaching enterprise. A lot have said this teaching programme made them re-think their whole teaching methods. The programme has worked very well and to date 31 teachers have gone through the training.”

Implementation

Getting the project off the ground was a challenge but Celtic Enterprise was determined to make the project a success. “It was a dream for us, we knew the schools programme but we didn’t know what the reaction was going to be from the teachers and whether they were going to buy into a brand new programme run by an organisation that they hadn’t really heard of. It was a lot of hoping that we could aim of Celtic Enterprise is “promoting entrepreneurship developed in conjunction with Waterford Institute achieve this,” says Cosgrave.

Education For Entrepreneurs

Three years into the project and Cosgrave is happy to announce that the European funding office have selected the project as an example of best practice within the field. Equally significant is the Small Business Forum report, which highlighted education as a key requirement and identified the need for more entrepreneurial training within the classroom. “They want the Business Studies Association of Ireland to champion the introduction of enterprise within the class room so much so that the curriculum development department are currently writing the curriculum for the leaving certificate. Probably by 2010 it will be here so we have laid an excellent foundation and we now have a lot of teachers out there already trained to teach enterprise as a subject and able to adapt to the curriculum when it comes in,” explains Cosgrave.

Praising The Project

Some teachers reported that the course is invaluable and recommend it to all teachers of enterprise, especially if they do not have a qualification to teach enterprise. Celtic Enterprises have now developed a suite of programmes specifically tailored to the needs of second level schools under the new brand of X-cel.

tools for success

Feedback from the students has been equally positive as they are being equipped with the tools to develop and learn the skills needed to run a small business. “The whole educations system has changed. It is much more about experiencing things and there is a lot more information available. Programmes like this are really boosting the children’s confidence, boosting their creativity and the feelings within them that they can really do it and it will make a difference,” says Cosgrave.

Emerging Entrepreneurs

Due to the growth in entrepreneurial education in Ireland, Cosgrave agrees that new generations of entrepreneurs are being nurtured. “There is a lot more risk taking now then there was in the past. If somebody isn’t happy within a structure they leave but that whole mindset has come about because there is more awareness and a willingness to try something new. Twenty years ago if somebody set up his or her own business it wasn’t valued, but now it is. It has taken a lot of the fear out of failing,” maintains Cosgrave.

Further Developments

Celtic Enterprises believe that there are huge benefits to reinforcing entrepreneurship in the education system and that entrepreneurial skills should be included in the syllabus for the senior cycle with curricular changes at primary and junior level. In addition to this, students need increased exposure to creativity, risk-taking, commercial awareness and communication skills and secondary teachers should be equipped with the skills and knowledge to deliver commercial thinking and entrepreneurship courses.

“Although funding will be a key issue for us going forward we are talking to the two main departments involved in Education and Enterprise in Ireland in relation to seeing where we go from here and looking at possible funding sources for the future,” concludes Cosgrave.

X-CEL THROUGH CELTIC ENTERPRISE LEARNING

KEY ELEMENTS OF THE X-CEL STUDENT ENTERPRISE PROGRAMME Mentor visits to school by co-ordinator Instruction on all aspect of setting up and running a business Enterprise competitions at school and county level. Successful candidates can then progress to the City and County Enterprise Board National Student Enterprise Awards Student Tracking Video Conferencing - Interactive video conferencing between schools Exchange Conference. This conference will focus on key management skills such as teambuilding, idea generation etc and allow students to mix with their counterparts through the country X-CEL ENTERPRISE OPTIONS A comprehensive model based on entrepreneurship as a future career has been developed. This comprises a two-hour workshop that looks at what an entrepreneur is, the skills required, case studies and a number of selfassessment questionnaires, which identify key skills and attributes. This module offers students a strong base for further investigation and ties in effectively with the existing Career Guidance structures. Participants on the 2005 Post Graduate Certificate in Teaching Enterprise Programme. X-CEL POST GRADUATE CERTIFICATE IN TEACHING ENTERPRISE The Celtic Enterprise Team has constructed an excellent Post Graduate Certificate Programme for Teaching Enterprise that is certified by Waterford Institute of Technology. The programme consists of 20 modules and assessment is based on a portfolio (70%) and exam (30%). This certification allows progression to a Masters in Management in Education.