Shona MclsaacTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if she will make a statement about progress in introducing Entry to Employment provision. [69293]
1179W
§ Mr. Stephen TwiggIn making its recommendations to encourage greater take up of Modern Apprenticeships, Sir John Cassels' Modern Apprenticeship Advisory Committee proposed the establishment of pre-employment provision for those young people not immediately able to enter a Modern Apprenticeship or other employment. The Learning and Skills Council and the Department have been working together over recent months with other relevant interests to develop a more effective set of arrangements in work-based learning that will enable more young people to progress to higher learning opportunities. To this end a pathfinder Entry to Employment programme will be introduced in the following areas from this August:
- Bedfordshire and Luton
- Bristol
- Central Birmingham and North Solihull
- Derbyshire
- Greater Manchester(Rochdale)
- Oxfordshire
- North Yorkshire
- Nottinghamshire
- Portsmouth and the South East Hampshire area
- Tyne and Wear (Newcastle and Gateshead).
Current work-based learning provision beneath National Vocational Qualification at Level 2 will be subsumed within the new programme in which there will be a better focus on meeting individual aspiration and need. The Learning and Skills Council plan to evaluate the effectiveness of these pathfinders with a view to wider introduction of a new Entry to Employment programme by August 2003.