The future’s bright at learning centre

There they were, confident as you like and happy to be talking about creative projects like websites for reviewing the latest computer games, developing new games, creating music videos.

I was down at the City Learning Centre in Chadderton as part of a Dragons’ Den-type panel of media and creative types poring over ideas of students from some of Oldham’s high schools.

The students, or pupils as we were called in my days at Clarksfield Secondary Modern, spend one day a week at the CLC in Hollinwood Avenue looking at their creative side.

Having taken a good look at themselves, the 14 and 15-year-olds are asked to come up with ideas which will showcase their potential to make a go of it in the real world.

Each of the three panels was asked to listen to presentations from the students, make suggestions and then come to a decision on their commercial viability.

With two colleagues, one with a musical background and a second from the world of video, both of whom were much, much younger than your correspondent, I sat through five offerings, all of which revealed — to me at least — that Oldham has some talented youngsters.

One of the ideas, the one I liked the best, involved a couple of teenagers convincing emerging rock bands to allow our wannabes access to secure areas from where they could take exclusive photographs. These would then be transformed into unique works of art, with clips of lyrics designed into the final offering.

A great idea to create a unique product. And how did our young entrepreneurs intend marketing this exciting product and making money?

They had no idea . . . they readily admitted they had not even considered the commercial imperatives and were just producing course work. On a similar theme, another presenter had an idea for a video game exchange, but didn’t want the hassle of making money so was preparing to be simply a forum for like-minded gamers.

I did my best, with help from my two colleagues, to persuade the youngsters that they needed to think about realising the potential from these ideas, and they did seem to respond, but who knows what is going on their heads.

After all, they were so young — surely they have better things to do than thinking about making money. Or do they?