Teenagers could soon have the opportunity to start their own business through two-week summer school programmes run by local companies.
Chancellor Gordon Brown conceived the idea based upon inspiration from Sir Alan Sugar, and Whitehall is currently drafting the details for a launch in two years' time, it has emerged.
The course will be aimed at students aged 12 to 18 and will feature lessons on how to create a viable business plan and raise finance. Students will also hear lectures from successful local entrepreneurs.
"If we are to have enterprise in our boardrooms it must start in our classrooms," Brown told the Sunday Telegraph. "I want a Britain of ambition and achievement where there is no ceiling on talent, no limit to potential, no cap on aspiration."
Brown reportedly came up with the idea after hearing Sugar address a teenage audience. A source close to Brown said that Sugar's flamboyant style and the success of his TV show The Apprentice made the idea of starting a business more exciting in the minds of young people.
Sugar, himself, left school at 16 and made his fortune through business ventures, and Brown said he would like teenagers who are not interested in pursuing higher education to follow the businessman's example with encouragement at every level.
Ministers, meanwhile, hope the plan will be popular with parents as an alternative form of childcare.
Due to the level of funding required for such a project, it is understood that education secretary Ruth Kelly will ask to begin the programme in 2007.
