Preston National News: Mandelson Sets Out Skills For Growth Plan

Mandelson Sets Out Skills For Growth Plan

Business Secretary Lord Mandelson today set out an ambitious vision for giving people and businesses the skills they need to help drive economic growth.

The Government will:

Create a modern class of technicians, through a dramatic expansion of advanced apprenticeships, creating 35,000 new places over the next two years;
Give every adult 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.

Lord Mandelson said:

"Higher level skills have never been more important to our growth. The strategy marks a radical shift in our skills priotites. It shows how we''s make sure we've got the skills to power the new industries and jobs of the future.

“We need engineers to lay the cables to expand access to high-speed internet, skilled people to build the electric vehicles of the future, and technicians to develop the medicines that will save lives.

“The goal of this strategy is a skills system defined not simply by targets based on achieved qualifications, but by ‘real world' outcomes. Relevant, quality skills, with real market value.”

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;
Offer 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 these policies Skills for Growth – The National Skills Strategy 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.

Posted Wednesday November 11^th 2009
By Department for Business Innovation and Skills