Liberal leader Steven Marshall outlines changes to senior secondary studies if elected LEARNING CURVE: St Peters Girls Year 11 students Soumya Gupta and Lauren Simpson with Julie Robertson, who is on of the four teachers in the Research Project Team. STUDENTS will not be forced to complete the controversial research project as one of their Year 12 subjects and will be encouraged to be business leaders through a new entrepreneurial curriculum, if the Liberals win the March election. Opposition leader Steven Marshall has unveiled the party's plan to create three special entry, dedicated entrepreneur high schools and will work with the senior school board to develop a series of subjects to equip students with skills to start and run businesses. Year 12 students will also be able to choose whether they do the half-year research project that the Labor State Government introduced as a compulsory subject under the new SA Certificate of Education in 2011. "We want SA to become the start-up state, and to achieve this, we want the next generation of South Australians to be our entrepreneurial generation," Mr Marshall said. Mr Marshall said the decision to make the research project optional followed a raft of feedback and, if elected, would be effective from 2016. We've seen a massive drop off in certain subject areas. Modern language is an area particularly hard hit but we want our kids to have these language skills. But there's a whole lot subjects affected. Geology has virtually disappeared," he said. SA loses almost 2000 residents each year, lured by better job prospects and a more cosmopolitan lifestyle in cities such as Sydney and Melbourne. Mr Marshall said the party wanted to stop the flood of young people leaving SA. "We want to create other pathways for people to stay in SA - other than getting a job, create a job," he said. We have the lowest business start-up rate on mainland Australia. We need more of our young people saying 'I'll start a business, have a go, employ people' and grow our economy. University is not for everyone, neither is working for someone else. We're not doing enough in the modern age to present people with the ability to start a business or encouraging young people to contemplate starting their own business. Mr Marshall said a Liberal government would work with the SACE Board to develop the new subjects and would take advice from the Education Department about what schools could become dedicated entrepreneur high schools. He hoped there would be one located south, north and central. We want to offer these subjects across all schools but we want to create three with a specific focus...because sometimes you need to critical mass. Right now there are schools with a music focus for example," he said. A government evaluation of the first year of the new SACE, last year, received many submissions asking for the research project to be dumped, made optional or strictly a Year 11 subject. But instead the government strengthened the project, providing more practical project options and offering an optional preparatory research skills subject in Year 11. St Peter's Girls principal Fiona Godfrey said any move to make the research project optional was desirable. "All of our students currently undertake the research project in Year 11 so they can study five subjects in Year 12," Ms Godfrey said. Schools should be encouraging young people to develop the skills to plan, establish and grow a business. We fully support the introduction of subjects that are rigorous and have substantial curriculum content, particularly those that will have relevance in our students' lives beyond school. Business SA chief executive Nigel McBride said the organisation welcomed the policy Opposition's policy announcement. Business SA has been a long time advocate for business and entrepreneurial focussed subjects to be included in the school curriculum. SA is a small business state," he said. We need to address SA's high youth unemployment rate and by offering entrepreneurial programs at high school we are training students to be our state's next business success stories.