No room for manufacturing in Government’s apprenticeship celebration
1 min read
The government today (1 February) launched National Apprenticeship Week although the best it could come up with by way of scheme exemplars was a supermarket's commitment to train butchers, bakers and shop assistants. The idea behind the week is to "celebrate the commitment of employers to recruit apprentices and urge people to look at the benefits to their skills and career of becoming an apprentice" although it looked very much like another step in the march towards a supermarket society.
A government statement said major UK employers were expecting to hire thousands of apprentices in 2010 and the government was encouraging all businesses to take up the new Apprentice Grant for Employers (AGE) scheme offering a £2,500 grant for each 16 or 17-year-old apprentice taken on.
Business Minister Pat McFadden visited a Morrisons supermarket in Camden, London, to congratulate the firm for its commitment to make 5,500 Government-funded apprenticeship places available by July 2010. "For so many businesses to be planning to recruit in 2010 is good news for the whole economy. It shows employers increasingly recognise the benefits they get from hiring apprentices. Undertaking an apprenticeship is a great way of learning a trade and gaining vocational experience," he said.
Morrisons – which will be creating more than 20,000 Apprenticeships in the next year, and offers training in bakery, butchery and retail skills, at level 2 (equivalent to five good GCSEs) – was just one major UK employer making a commitment to apprenticeships this week, the minister went on. Crossrail had made a commitment to take on 400 apprentices in the next year through its contractors, and B&Q aimed to double its apprenticeship intake to 300 this September.
However, despite Apprenticeships Minister Kevin Brennan's assertion that "Skills will be key to the recovery of the UK economy and apprentices can be vital to businesses looking to innovate and grow", of apprenticeships in manufacturing – the sector most needy of skills if the government's stated wish for a rebalanced economy is to be realised – there was not a single word or example.
