Universities teach students facts of business

Northern Ireland’s universities are leading the way in teaching students the facts of life about the real world of business, it was revealed today.

According to the first annual report of The Northern Ireland Centre for Entrepreneurship (NICENT) - a partnership between the University of Ulster, Queen’s University Belfast and Loughry/CAFRE – local universities are:

• Equipping record numbers of students with the skills needed to create globally competitive businesses in Northern Ireland.
• Using innovative web CT teaching methods that are the envy of universities in the UK and Europe.
• Seeking to build partnerships with Further Education colleges to promote entrepreneurship at grass roots level.

Launching NICENT’s first annual report today, Director Dr Pauric McGowan said: “At one time Northern Ireland was the economic powerhouse of the UK, with its ropeworks, shipyards and heavy engineering firms among the finest in the world. Those industries withered, partly because others learned to do the job better and more cheaply and partly because they did not change to meet new challenges.

“Now we have an economy which is overly dependent on the public sector. However that public sector is also being squeezed and we need to rediscover our culture of enterprise and innovation. We cannot depend on companies coming in from outside to bolster our economy. We need to do it ourselves and that is what NICENT is attempting to instill in the next generation of business leaders - our students”.

At the end of 2003 the Global Enterprise Monitor put Northern Ireland at the bottom of the UK entrepreneurship league.

However, Dr McGowan said NICENT has risen to that challenge with a total of 2,635 undergraduates and postgraduate students in engineering and science undergoing entrepreneurship training in the last year, 50% more than the target figure.

It is anticipated that by the end of 2005 more than 6,300 students in Northern Ireland will have learned about entrepreneurship and the skills required.

(MB/SP)