Recent research from the Prince’s Trust has revealed some alarming statistics about the young people in Britain. Nearly a fifth of young people “think they will amount to nothing”, and 43% of young people don’t feel prepared to enter the workforce when they leave Secondary education. When the research moves to industries, it is evident that 67% of employers don’t feel like school-leavers have the necessary soft skills (communication, teamwork, resilience) to thrive in the workplace.

At what age do people become entrepreneurs? Is it one of the milestone ages of 16, 18 or 21? Is it not until they leave the sphere of education and enter the world of business?

‘Entrepreneurship’ is an immortal buzzword. A simple online search will provide you with over 146,000,000 answers (and multiple pictures of Richard Branson) of which the first one (by Wikipedia) will give you the following:

“Entrepreneurship has traditionally been defined as the process of designing, launching and running a new business, which typically begins as a small business, such as a startup company, offering a product, process or service for sale or hire, and the people who do so are called 'entrepreneurs'.”

Teaching entrepreneurship as an academic subject has been a hot topic for years. Well-known business leaders such as Richard Branson have called for schools to “come up to date” and devote more time to entrepreneurship, and the Government has backed various initiatives and entrepreneurial competitions in schools.

College, university, apprenticeships, full-time work… with many school-leavers unsure about what to do after their secondary school education, it’s important for teachers to consider each option carefully so that they might offer advice when needed. As we’ve seen in recent months, a lot of business professionals are encouraging entrepreneurialism in young people. Established entrepreneur and financial education specialist Daniel Britton gives his five main reasons why this way of thinking should be encouraged.

Teachers are in a great position to spot and nurture entrepreneurial talent. The life stories of successful entrepreneurs often reveal that they struggled with traditional education, but occasionally there was someone who believed in them, before they believed in themselves. Despite the uncertain economic climate, reluctant bank lending and unpredictable business outlook – now is exactly the right time for budding young entrepreneurs to start a business.