“Young people are vital to a sustainable post-pandemic renewal – not only are they better adapted to digital working, but they bring masses of ambition, passion, and resilience”, says Allyson Smith an economics student currently Heriot Watt University and a Saltire Scholar Intern.

This is not just a young person’s plea for opportunity, her belief is endorsed by The ScaleUp Institute who show a significant positive correlation between the percentage of young people who are highly skilled and the number and growth of scale-ups.

Put simply, talented young people are vital for scale-up success and scale-ups are vital for Scotland’s future – as job creators, innovators, taxpayers. Not only are our young people the talent pool of today, they are the entrepreneurs, the innovators, the leaders of tomorrow.

I see two big challenges to overcome. Rather, I see two really massive opportunities for Scotland.

1. “Go to [University] for four years, work for 40. The four and 40 is dead. So dead,” says Rachel Carlson, CEO of Guild Education. Rachel’s edtech start-up was founded on the belief that we now need to retrain, upskill every four years. Her five year old “start-up” is currently valued at $3.75bn. She may be on to something.

Ross Tuffee, founder of Dogfi.sh and chair of the SDS Digital Technologies Skills Group goes further, stating: “In my eight years I had to retrain my developers three times. Continual upskilling, retraining, learning is now the norm and no one is exempt.” To meet the bow wave of demand, we need an education system for life, served by the public, private and third sector working together. Massive Opportunity #1 – move from 4 and 40 to lifelong learning.

2. In a stable economic environment, it could be argued that you can learn in isolation, in the classroom taught by people who are distant from the day to day. Yet in a dynamic, evolving environment you learn by doing, learn from others’ mistakes and successes, learn by experimentation. Practical and academic learning must be integrated.

University of Limerick has just launched a new Immersive Software Engineering degree in partnership with over a dozen tech firms and co-designed by John Collison, founder of Stripe. Collison’s intent is to create “a great path for secondary students – especially girls – into technology.” Indeed, in some disciplines we already have it. The University of Dundee Medicine lecture theatre is embedded inside Ninewells Hospital. Dundee medical students are hands-on in their very first day of their six-year degree.

We have a decent platform with graduate apprenticeships, internships like the Saltire Scholars, student accelerators like EdVenture, Strathclyde Inspire and more. We can go much further, much faster and mainstream. We can make integrated learning in partnership with the entrepreneurial, innovative community the standard not the exception from the very first day. Massive Opportunity #2 – integrate, interweave learning by doing from day 1.

As Allyson goes on to say, “I have seen first-hand how this pandemic has left young people facing disproportionate levels of unemployment, underemployment and lack of opportunities. Society must prioritise creating opportunities – young people can’t take action without getting a break.”

We can reshape our education system if we want to. We can create lifelong learning opportunities. The comfort of the status quo and safety of playing around the edges will hold us back. We need to be bold, be entrepreneurial. Scotland plc needs the very best talent pool. We owe it to our young people. Indeed, our economic future depends on it.

Sandy Kennedy is chief executive of the Entrepreneurial Scotland Foundation