Education and Employment Secretary David Blunkett today announced extra money to help train 250,000 young people next year - an additional 20,000 young people.
Announcing the national 2000-01 budgets for Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs) and Chambers of Commerce, Training and Enterprise (CCTEs), Mr Blunkett said:
"I am making available an additional £30 million to provide more places in the successful Modern Apprenticeship and National Traineeship schemes and to give more help to those young people who need extra support. I hope that as a result, TECs will spend some £60m more next year on training young people than they are likely to do this year.
"Modern Apprenticeships provide tremendous opportunities for young people to learn new skills in over 80 industrial, commercial and service sectors. They can become for example design or production engineers, craft bakers, accountants, printers or technicians in all industries. They enable people to raise their skill levels to achieve National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) Level 3. At the lower NVQ level 2, National Traineeships offer similar chances for young people to build up skills leading to future advancement.
"TECs will also have access to another £30million to support young people taking up their Right to Time Off for Study or Training where necessary. This means that nearly £900million is available to give young people the opportunity to progress through the work-based route.
"We must maintain the momentum towards achieving the National Learning Targets for 2002 and TECs have a crucial role to play both in ensuring high quality training delivery next year and a smooth transition to the new Learning and Skills Council.
"To ensure they can manage the transition effectively while sustaining the broad range of activity which particularly benefits local communities, I am also making available £41m to support TECs in managing the change. This represents a big vote of confidence in TECs to see through the changes successfully."
