The National Skills Strategy

Tue, Nov 17, 2009

education, general, news from westminster

11 November 2009

 

The Government has announced a new ambitious vision for giving people and businesses the skills they need to help drive economic growth.

 

The Labour Government will:

 

  • Create a modern class of technicians, through a dramatic expansion of  advanced apprenticeships, creating 35,000 new apprenticeship places over the next two years;

 

  • Give every adult who wants one a personal skills account, empowering learners to shop around for training with new information on how well different courses and colleges can meet their needs;

 

  • Radically simplify the way in which skills policy is delivered – working with the UK Commission for Employment and Skills to reduce the number of public bodies by more than 30.

 

Today’s announcement shows that it is Labour that has the ideas for Britain’s future and is willing to invest in ensuring that we’ve got the skills we need as a nation to succeed in the years to come.

 

Labour rescued apprenticeships from near extinction under the Tories and today’s announcement that we’re set to fund 35,000 more is good news for everyone.

 

In addition, the Government will:

 

  • Work with business to focus funding on the areas of the economy that can do most to drive growth and jobs, deploying around £100m to support around 160,000 training places in areas such as life sciences, digital media and technology, advanced manufacturing, engineering, construction and low carbon energy;

 

  • Offering 1,000 new scholarships worth £1,000 each, to encourage the best apprentices to progress into higher education;  and

 

  • Give more employers the chance to drive and shape training provision through launching a fifth competitive bidding round of the National Skills Academies programme.

 

Through Labour’s policies outlined in Skills for Growth – The National Skills Strategy  the Labour Government sets out a pathway to achieving a bold new ambition for three quarters of the population to go to university or get an advanced technical qualification by the age of 30.

 

The full executive summary and strategy document can be found here  http://www.bis.gov.uk

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