A FUTURE generation of businessmen and women celebrated their 2012 scholarships with representatives from industry.

The Budmouth College students were joined by their parents and trustees from the Sir Samuel Mico Trust, a local charity which was set up to provide scholarship programmes.

The scholarship scheme, now in its fourth year, is a nationally unique programme for the state school sector and is run as part of the work students at the Weymouth school undertake at the Centre of Excellence for Industrial Liaison (CEIL).

The scheme supports students with a bursary that enables them to shadow professionals practising in students’ intended career destination.

Marcel Ciantar, director for the Budmouth CEIL, said: “We are very happy to be able to give our students these opportunities that they have to compete for in preparation for what lies ahead once they join the ‘real world’.

“The scholarship aims to give a real taste of what it means to move from the world of education to the world of work.

“Through this scheme, students will be able to compete well at winning over future opportunities they have to compete for.”

Stephanie Pettit, managing director of local firm Equation Accounting, gave the keynote speech during the evening.

She said: “Scholarship students are very much ‘blank canvasses’ when they arrive.

“This is a great thing, as you can train them your own unique way of doing business.”

Scholarship student Matthew Cornick has been shadowing Ms Pettitt at her accounting firm.

She said: “Matthew was ready to go – bright, sparky, enthusiastic, intelligent, intuitive and already ‘loaded’ up with basic business interaction skills.”

Gary Hepburn, chairman of the Sir Samuel Mico Trust said: ‘"It was great to hear from the scholarship students about how they have benefited from their placements under the Sir Samuel Mico Scholarship Scheme, they are all bright and confident young people, furthermore they are fantastic ambassadors for the scholarship scheme.

“The trust is very grateful to the companies that hosted the students and for Marcel and the team at Budmouth College who administer this aspect of the charity’s work.

The scholarship scheme helps to develop students’ professional skills and attitudes. If you would like to know more about the opportunities available within the scholarship scheme please get in touch with CEIL.