Sir, – We read this week (August 20th) that Ibec has called for teachers to be trained in “entrepreneurial thinking” so it can be introduced at the earliest stage in young people’s schooling.
What is “entrepreneurial thinking?”
You might say it is a mixture of inspiration, risk-taking and the desire to turn a quick profit. Surely there are other kinds of inspiration which would be more salutary at “the earliest stage in young people’s schooling”?
These young people need to be given new ways to think, to question assumptions, to be shown how to find the strange, the new and the marvellous.
We need entrepreneurs, certainly, but we also need artists, actors, scientists and musicians, teachers and poets, for whom the profit motive is not the primary one.
The underlying assumption of Ibec’s call seems to be that the purpose of education is to serve the needs of business, an assumption which is all too often echoed in the media and politics.
I hope that educators can hold out against being the mere producers of ready drones that business would like!
– Yours, etc,
CIARAN TAYLOR
Dún Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.