The fund, offering grants up to £250,000, aims to encourage innovative courses and projects for under-18s, highlighting entrepreneurship as a viable career path.

Gordon Merrylees, newly appointed head of entrepreneurship at Wbg, welcomes the initiative and is confident it will encourage a new generation of young people to consider entrepreneurship as a career.

“Entrepreneurs are the lifeblood of the UK economy, and we see tremendous potential to support their business growth ambitions by offering them specialised accounting, advisory, audit and tax expertise to help them start, scale and succeed,” he said.

Over three decades at RBS, Mr Merrylees worked with and supported countless entrepreneurs, early-stage startups and high-growth SMEs as he led and, ultimately, accelerated the Bank’s support programme for UK businesses.

“I fully support helping inspire entrepreneurs at an early age,” he said. “Accelerators are ideal for nurturing and enabling entrepreneurs –especially young entrepreneurs, who often don’t know what they don’t know.

“Access to networks, coaching, training, mentors and to like-minded entrepreneurs and peer-to-peer learning often has more value than any monetary sum you can hand budding entrepreneurs. And Wbg is well-placed to help them access established business networks.”

The Entrepreneurial Education Pathways Fund is open for applications until 9 September 2024.