Skilling up

New bill creates ‘right’ to on-the-job training.

Skills Secretary John Denham and Children’s Secretary Ed Balls have published new legislation aiming to expand skills training for young people and to improve school standards.

Called The Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill, the move marks the first significant overhaul of apprenticeship legislation for almost 200 years.

Aiming to guarantee a beneficial outcome for employee and employer, the bill will put apprenticeships on a statutory basis and plans to provide an opportunity for every qualified young person who wants one.

The move is designed to help achieve government targets of placing one in five young people in apprenticeships by 2020. Government investment in apprenticeships is approximately £1bn per year.

Also included on the bill are new measures to make ‘lighter touch’ inspections for sucessful schools and stronger powers of intervention for those that are not.

Speaking about the move, Skills Secretary John Denham said: “Everyone deserves the best chance to reach their potential throughout their lives. This new Bill will put in place new rights so that at whatever stage you are in life, you can continue to improve your skills and get training, to improve your career prospects.

 “Enshrining apprenticeships in law and introducing a new right to request time to train, coupled with proposals to improve our schools will help deliver the skills in the economy we need when the upturn comes.”
 

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