New research released by UKBF last week during National Careers Week, showed that more than 45,000 school leavers aged between 16 and 18 years old started their own businesses in the last three years.
Despite this significant number of young people choosing to start up in business, UKBF revealed that current legislation prevents thousands of them from reaching their full potential.
Richard Osborne explained that teaching important practical skills, for starting and running a business, is still not a core element of current careers education in UK schools. He described how many young people register as self-employed because post-16 academic education is not the right path for them and adequate work-based learning opportunities are not available.
In this guest article for DiversityQ, Richard discusses how the system's 'forgotten children' including those deemed disruptive have great traits for business. He talks about untapped energy, creative ideas, and how challenging the status quo is exactly what you need in business.
Richard writes: "In my experience as a mentor for disengaged young people, all too often these ‘challenging’ individuals are the very brightest ones in the room. They have untapped energy that isn’t channelled in a constructive way because they haven’t had anyone to help them do that. If there is a lack of support at home and then a lack of support and resource at school, what is that young person to do? How can they help themselves?"
Read Richard's article, How mentoring forgotten children can create future leaders, in DiversityQ.
