Tories plan apprentice shake-up

The Conservatives have condemned the Government's record on providing vocational training, and have proposed a major shakeup of the way that it is funded and organised.

Plans laid out in a new green paper include proposals to support 100,000 new work-based apprenticeships, and to fully fund the 77,000 that are part-funded at the moment.

The proposals would also see small and medium enterprises (SMEs) given £2,000 per apprenticeship, to reflect their "difficulty meeting the cost of taking on and training apprentices".

Universities and skills secretary John Denham has dismissed the plans as "a disastrous mixture of cuts, waste and theft of Government ideas".

However, the paper has been welcomed by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), which recently complained that the Government's flagship Train to Gain scheme was too bureaucratic.

"Conservative proposals to encourage and support small and medium sized businesses to offer apprenticeships are good," commented the BCC's director-general, David Frost. "I'm pleased that all major parties now recognise the need for high quality, employer-led apprenticeships."

"The BCC strongly believes that an increase in the number of apprenticeships will ease future skill shortages and provide a respected alternative education and training route for young adults," he added.
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