Unemployed Youths Given Opportunity To Develop Skills

Employment and Learning Minister Dr Stephen Farry hails an initiative to give 20 unemployed young people the opportunity to develop skills in the ICT sector.

Minister Farry was speaking today during a visit to Wholeschool Software in West Belfast, which is working in partnership with the Department for Employment and Learning to offer 20 opportunities to unemployed young people to gain valuable skills and experience in the ICT sector.

The Minister said: "My Department welcomes the opportunity to work with employers to provide work placements for young unemployed people and to develop their employability skills. This partnership with Wholeschool Software, will allow the participants to acquire and develop the skills sought by employers in this growth sector of software development and programming."

Wholeschool Software, a local company specialising in online software platforms for the Education sector, has developed a proven 'Fast-Track' training approach that has been successful in taking young people with few qualifications and developing them into ICT professionals.

The Department for Employment and Learning is supporting the project through the Youth Employment Scheme, which provides sector relevant work experience opportunities which are supported by employer subsidies.

The Minister concluded: "It is heartening to see that employers like Wholeschool are willing to offer opportunities to help facilitate and enable the skills development of our next generation. This is much more than employers meeting their corporate social responsibility commitments – this is about investing in the development of their workforce, with government support, to improve their business performance and grow our local economy."

(CD/GK)