ON reading The TES survey findings, we don’t appear to have come very far since Industry Year 1986. I am dismayed to hear Philip Robinson, of the Financial Services Authority, advocating the need for organisations as go-betweens to “speak the same language”. It is clear that all the initiatives since the 1980s have had little lasting impact, partly due to short-term funding of intermediaries such as Education Business Partnerships, but also due to the lack of confidence to give schools the necessary funding to develop and manage their own business-link activities.

Schools are now more akin to small businesses and the self-managed school has come of age. So Mr Brown, have the confidence to give schools funding for business enterprise like teacher placements, curriculum enrichment, or just the time to focus management time on activities such as Young Enterprise; but don’t create yet another initiative or brokerage body.

This is a personal view and not a statement from Nord Anglia.

Peter Brereton Business development executive Nord Anglia Education UBI regional director for the teacher placement service 1989-96