The results of a Commission consultation about the needs of small and medium-sized businesses - paving the way for a possible Small Business Act - have just been made public. Most of the small businesses responding wanted regulatory burdens reduced, easier access to public sector contracts, more effective protection of their intellectual property rights, and greater support should they wish to expand and go global. No surprises there.

The most unified response, though, came over education - with 88 per cent saying there was a need for additional measures to stimulate entrepreneurship through education, and 86.6 per cent believing that entrepreneurship was insufficiently reflected in school curricula.

At face-value, this is obviously true: fourth-formers aren’t taught sales techniques for closing a deal or how to manage a balance sheet. But, then again, is it really desirable that they should be ? After all, public service isn’t formally on most curricula either, nor the rudiments of professional life. And wouldn’t more informal involvement by local small businesses in school activities - such as fund-raising or marketing - be a more practical way to go than adding “basic economic principles with a special focus on difficulties and constraints linked to creating and running an enterprise” to the school subject list. Pity the poor teacher who has to interest an average adolescent in the latter.