OK we are now back into the groove of Young Chamber activity for the new school term.
Over the summer months and now coming into autumn there is considerable comment within the media around increasing numbers of high unemployment of young people aged 18 to 25 and that schools and business have got to work together to address this.
This is obviously a good point and we should all be working together to try to ensure that young people have the best opportunities to aspire and achieve their goals and ambitions. Now this framework of provision needs to be accessible to all young children from all backgrounds. When you think about this it is a considerable challenge to achieve - 'engaging with all young people' and more often than not this is why I believe that the various national initiatives tend to be focused on minority  group initiatives as opposed to trying to engage the majority which is seen albeit subconsciously, as being too difficult. Now this is where I kind of disagree as I am an ardent believer that we should be working for the benefit of all young people.
This is why the work of Young Chamber is pretty important in that it is designed to work with all young people from a diverse range of talents and backgrounds which will form the foundation of future societies. Our job is to galvanise the enthusiasm of the local business communities from across the country to support and work with their colleagues within the education system to assist all our young people achieve their plans and ambitions. Now this cannot wait until they are 16 years of age before we have a chat about what they want to do when they grow up, some of them have had ideas since they were 11 years of age and younger.  Our collective challenge is to assist young people to develop and cultivate their ideas about what they want to do when they leave education way before 16.
Just think of the potential benefits for society if we start to link up their life aims and ambitions with their education from aged 11, think about the self motivation that kicks in when a young person starts to link what he or she needs to do in school to attain their aspirations. I think that this will assist schools with their educational levels of attainment as well as assisting young people get the jobs and careers that they dream of. What would this mean for businesses, well they would have young people entering the work place having some idea of what business expects of its workforce; what would the benefits to the local and national economy be; well it would grow and develop as you would have a far greater number of people in the workforce doing the jobs and pursuing the careers that they had chosen and thought about and planned for. As a work colleague of mine regularly says to me 'this is just a thought'