CHILDREN are teeming with money-spinning ideas that are waiting to be exploited, according to education chiefs.

And as part of a national pilot, three schools in Blackburn have teamed up to encourage pupils to do the business. All schools in East Lancashire will be expected to deliver some kind of enterprise education after September 2005, following the Howard Davies report.

The 2002 report, backed by the Government, said the best way to build a deeper entrepreneurial culture was to begin at school. It found that stronger links needed to be made between schools and businesses and that pupils lacked the skills and confidence to turn ideas into reality.

Now the pilot project by Witton Park High School, St Bede's High School and Darwen Vale could form the basis for this new business-focused education.

The Government gave £25,000 to around 35 pathfinder pilots around the country to come up with a way to deliver enterprise education.

So 700 pupils from the three schools spent last week working on their business ideas. In small teams, they came up with power point presentations about their dream business, how it would run, which market it would be aimed at and what kind of competition or difficulties they may face.

According to Maureen Gosling, assistant head teacher at Witton, the introduction of enterprise education either as a GCSE, or a certificate equivalent to a half GCSE, would counter "spoon feeding in education".

"It has been widely criticised that education at present is too prescriptive," she said. "Teenagers leave school after being spoon fed, they go on to further education and are spoon fed, without using their own skills or knowledge.

"This is about children with brilliant ideas but no way of knowing what to do with them. We want to show them how to be self reliant, think more pro-actively, and make them realise they could make their ideas come true."

Ideas for businesses from the students, who have been researching ideas in schools for several weeks, have ranged from carbonised underpants to stationery, night clubs, community centres and music shops.