Students get to turn that business dream into reality

STUDENTS get to turn their business dreams into a reality and figure out what floats through the Social Entreprise Programme in schools across South Dublin.

This year, 115 transition year students in groups of up to five students are participating in the business development initiative at Kishoge Community College.

Over 25,000 students from around 500 second-level schools nationwide will be embarking on their entrepreneurial journey as they create, establish, and run their own businesses.

The top business get to go forward and compete for the top prize of Student Enterprise of the Year, with the programme run through Local Enterprise Offices, Entrprise Ireland and local authorities.

Marie Lyons is business coordinator in Kishoge Community College and she is excited for her students to get stuck into the Student Enterprise Programme once again.

“This is something we have done in Kishoge Community College for the past few years and the support is great,” Ms Lyons tells The Echo.

“The Local Enterprise Office connects us with people who have experience running a business, so students get to listen to people who have real-life experience and it’s not just us harping on.

“A lot of our students have great ideas for businesses in the future and want to be entrepreneurs when they get older, like Bill Gates or Elon Musk, but they really don’t know where to start.”

In Kishoge, they break the Student Enterprise Programme down into different sections starting with an idea generation session and business plan development session.

From that point on, students get to pitch their ideas and apply for a nominal loan from the school, to get experience of achieving funding for their businesses before floating it at an internal winter fair.

What the school has found is that its students get a tremendous amount of practical ideation, marketing, finance and sales experience along the way.

“It’s all about application,” Ms Lyons details.

“Our students hear a lot about business and how it’s done, but the reality is that you won’t know until you sit down and figure out how to run one, discover what is successful and what isn’t.

“It is an opportunity for our students to understand business more when going into the Leaving Certificate, and all of the aspects of how to run one and what it takes to do it successfully.

“What we have found is that our students usually list the programme and their business journey as one of their highlights of the year.”

Students from first to sixth year can participate in the Student Entreprise Programme across Junior, Intermediate and Senior categories.

Schools across the county are encouraged to sign-up and participate in the initiative, with some 325,000 students doing so since it began in 2003.

Schools interested in getting involved can visit: studententerprise or email sepleodublinsouth@realnation.ie

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