Having recently read an article in the Sunday Express entitled “Teach our children to be expert with money” and observing some key comments made in the CSA Conference 2014 about educating our children at primary school age to understand debt and its implications, it got me thinking. Should we educate children on how to run their own business and understand the financial implications of being a business owner?

I’ve previously written that there were 5,974 new businesses formed in Cardiff in 2013 and that no doubt as I write this a fair few have failed, leaving the business owner in debt?; employees out of work?; bills unpaid?

Should we educate potential business owners before they leave school?
Take my daughters high school, whilst visiting to investigate her GCSE options we decided to sit in on the ‘Business’ talk to find that they are only offering a retail perspective to business. Whilst this is good for natural sales people and those that want to be a shop-keeper it isn’t an all-round business education class. I would rather that they offer a more rounded perspective on business, from finance, marketing, sales and purchasing to understanding legal documents.

I regret not addressing this with the head at the time but alas she has since taken her options, began the courses in September and enrolled in a further course in our local college for a qualification that the school is not offering. It is our responsibility not just as parents but as business owners ourselves to ask these questions to help stop our future business owners failing. Maybe this will stop the cycle of educating our youth into debt and help reduce the number of students leaving education and not finding suitable positions.

The UK has a plethora of entrepreneurs and we should salute those that are braving the self-employment route. We should also offer support and guidance to those that are new to business, that way there will be more trading companies, more opportunities and less unemployment.

SeaMount Business Services Ltd offers traditional accountancy services but in a non-traditional manner. We understand that you need your accountant to work with you in the here and now and not just tell you what happened in your business 6 months ago. We have partnered with Exact Online who assists us in delivering a Business Support programme which give business owners a business coach, a consultant on hand to offer proactive advice whenever they need it.

Click here to contact us to find out more information.