There’s a lot of talk about the UK’s skills shortage and how entrepreneurial businesses are suffering as a result, but we rarely hear about the entrepreneurs themselves (except when they are dyslexic or dropped out of school aged six).

So here’s an example of a particularly talented young entrepreneur who’s running a business and achieving qualifications at the same time, in doing so exhibiting that rare combo of academic and vocational proficiency.

Lewis Bankes-Hughes (who sounds like a bit of a swot) founded graphic design business Fluffy Duster in 2006 at the tender age of 14. He took his GCSEs at Bloxham School in North Oxfordshire, and got his grades back this morning.

As you’d expect he got an A* in business studies (that could have been embarrassing), and did pretty well elsewhere:

Business A *
Design Technology A*
Maths B
English Language B
English Literature A
Geography A*
Science foundation A
Science higher B
Religious Education B
French B

Bankes-Hughes, who is the Federation of Small Businesses’ (FSB) youngest member, said he thought some subjects were more useful than others in helping him run his business.

Religious studies was a soft option in my day too young man.

He added – possibly under threat of a Chinese burn from an FSB official: “Some subjects were too centred on passing the actual GCSE rather than preparing you for later life. I think diplomas [due to be introduced in September] could help with this problem.”

Colin Willman, FSB education and skills chairman, chimed in: “The FSB still values GCSEs but we hope to see diplomas and work based training on the same par.”

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By Dan Matthews  on   Aug 21,2008

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Keywords

skills    qualifications    exams    FSB    small business   

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