News

From September fourteen to sixteen year olds will be able to spend up to two days a week out of the classroom, learning a trade in a workplace.

The new scheme was announced by education secretary Charles Clarke yesterday.

Initial opportunities on the new Young Apprenticeships scheme will be in engineering, automotive industries, business administration, logistics and the arts and creative industries. Recruits will have to meet certain achievement criteria, and the government expects that about half of them will continue training after age 16 and progress to level 2 Apprenticeships which will replace the existing foundation level apprenticeship.

The DfES admits that demand for apprenticeships from young people is already outstripping the supply of places on offer from employers.  The Learning and Skills Council is to run an advertising and marketing campaign to persuade employers to offer more places.   

The way apprenticeships are organised has been changed to meet the demands of employers who will now have more input into the way they are designed. It will in future be possible for an apprentice to switch employer and take their part-completed apprenticeship with them.

Clarke said “The new Young Apprenticeships represent one of the most exciting developments for young people since the introduction of GCSEs in 1986 and fits in with Mike Tomlinson’s work on 14 to 19 curriculum reform.”

The Entry to Employment scheme launched last August for young people not ready or able to join an apprenticeship is to be rebranded as a Pre-Apprenticeship.

According to the government there are now 255,500 apprenticeships in England compared to 76,000 in 1997.