John Downes

By linking the school syllabus to the reality of life outside the classroom, the Business 2000 resource helps to meet the needs of teachers and students preparing for exams, according to the Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey.

At the launch of this year's Irish Times Business 2000 resource pack yesterday, Mr Dempsey said the pack was designed to improve the standard of business education in Ireland by linking second-level schools directly with leading business organisations.

"The formal language of business can often be remote from the life experience of the student," he said. "But by relating these terms to actual organisations in both the public and private sectors, it brings life and a human reality to the formal theory."

Now in its seventh year, The Irish Times Business 2000 pack contains a multi-media resource in a published folder, a CD-ROM and a website. It is distributed to second-level schools , as well as selected third-level institutions, and is accompanied by the Business 2000 column which appears in the Business this Week supplement of The Irish Times every Friday during school term.

Irish Times editor Ms Geraldine Kennedy also expressed her intention to continue The Irish Times's association with the Business 2000 initiative.

Other speakers at the launch included Ms Amanda Ratcliffe, marketing lecturer at the Dublin Institute of Technology, and Ms Norah Martyn of the Business Studies Teachers' Association of Ireland.