WOMEN are being urged to smash through the glass ceiling by joining a scheme that develops their managerial skills.

Hundreds of women across the county could qualify for the Management Development for Women Project, run by the University of Kent and funded by Kent and Medway Learning and Skills Council and the European Union. It has the backing of the Chartered Management Institute.

At the launch, David Butler, lecturer in entrepreneurship at the university's business school, said the scheme was aimed at women in business on their own, or employees "in relatively modest supervisory roles with potential to do more”.

"We want to give them the chance to develop themselves, improve their lot, improve their potential and therefore try to improve the potential of businesses they are working for," he told a mainly female audience of nearly 100.

He said the scheme should also appeal to women returning to work after a break to bring up children.

The scheme involves a career review interview, followed by workshops and training at colleges across Kent and Medway, including Mid Kent College, Canterbury and South Kent.

Around 300 places are available and much of the training will be free or at reduced cost. It will also be arranged to suit women responsible for child or elderly care.

Some 30 mentors with business experience are being sought to help with the scheme. Monica Eden-Green, the Lady Mayoress of Canterbury and a former senior college chief, was an early volunteer.

She welcomed the project, saying that as a mother who had left work to bring up children, she fully understood the difficulties of returning to the workplace in a senior role.

Professor Richard Scase, Kent Business columnist and business strategist, said that only five per cent of the UK's senior managers were women. He blamed firms for "prejudice, appalling attitude to childcare, and lack of family-friendly policies”.

He said: "Women are mainly doing low-paid, part-time boring, uninteresting, dull, tedious jobs in Britain."

But things were changing. There would be fewer younger people in the workforce and more women would be needed. The future was very bright for women. Seventy two per cent of first-time mortgages were given to live-alone women.

And they generally had "more brains" than men, he claimed. More women were starting their own businesses, possibly to escape the barriers and prejudice facing them in large organisations.

Statistics showed that their businesses survived longer than those set up by men.

"After three years, their businesses have grown by a far greater extend that those set up by men. Women, contrary to all the stereotypes, are more successful entrepreneurs than men."

All you needed to set up a business was "a mobile phone and imagination," he said.

Canterbury-based Ann Edmondson, who runs her own training business Auctus, said men should also be given this sort of training.

"I do not like to see gender discrimination," she said. "We should also be helping the guys."

More details about the scheme, which starts on April 1, from Carole Barron on 01227 824103.