To ask the Minister for Employment and Learning to detail his plans to support pre-enterprise initiatives.

Encouraging an entrepreneurial culture, and providing the skills needed to support innovation and enterprise are important elements in delivering Government's wider economic vision for Northern Ireland. While other Departments and organisations are in the lead in this area, my Department has an important contribution to make especially through further and higher education.

The Department is working with the six area-based Further Education colleges and the Workforce Development Fora to determine how best they can support business and industry. Developing enterprise awareness and encouraging entrepreneurship amongst the students will be a key part of this. For example, the curriculum provided to 16 to 19 year olds will include a component on enterprise and an understanding of how business operates.

More specifically, all colleges will continue to make available the Certificate of Business Enterprise. This course was developed by the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) at the request of the Department. It enables students to develop knowledge, skills and understanding, as well as the motivation and confidence, to establish their own small businesses.

The Further Education sector's renewed emphasis on economic development requires engagement and collaboration between Colleges and local businesses, not just in the teaching of skills but also in support of innovation, productivity and product design and development and there is very good practice across the sector.

The Further Education sector will also continue to explore with Invest NI how it might better support enterprise through the introduction of college based “Points of Presence” to offer information and advice to those considering starting a business.

In Higher Education a particular example of Best Practice is through the Northern Ireland Centre for Entrepreneurship (NICENT). This project, funded by Invest NI, enables our two Universities to embed entrepreneurship and started with science, engineering and technology but has now moved to other faculties.