Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Cathaoirleach for selecting this Commencement matter. I am very conscious of the Minister's commitment to entrepreneurship in terms of education. I see reference to education in his jobs document. I want to keep this issue active. It is very active in certain schools but in others there is not much of a focus on it and we have got to ask ourselves the reason for that.

I have chosen to raise the five "Es", namely, engage, energise, enable, encourage and enterprise. When I talk about engage I mean how we can engage and communicate with younger people about the importance of entrepreneurship, business and all that goes with that. How can we energise, stimulate and be creative and innovative in terms of capacity building among young people regarding enterprise? How can we enable and encourage our young children to think critically and in a bigger way about enterprise and the importance of commerce in their lives? I believe we would find that young people by their nature are very enterprising. I can speak for myself in that regard. I recall keeping rabbits as a young child, brushing the Angora wool off them, sending it to the United Kingdom and getting British stamps in exchange, which I then had to sell to somebody else. Where people are given a yearning and a learning for enterprise they respond very well. I took the time to look at the Erasmus support, advanced learning and training opportunities, SALTO, participation EU programme and there are huge opportunities in that in terms of developing enterprise.

Every school should foster entrepreneurial skills through new and creative ways of teaching and learning and all young people should benefit from at least one practical entrepreneurial experience before leaving secondary school. I cite the mini-companies and mini campus companies.

I do not doubt the Government's commitment in this area. I do not doubt the Minister's commitment or that of the Department but we need to address the reason it is not happening to a greater extent in some schools and is happening in some schools over and above others. It is an important part of education. Education is more than formal learning. There is informal learning also, and we know from experience that one can learn to be an entrepreneur. I would like to hear the Minister's response.