Government launches plan to boost workers' skills

The government has announced plans to tackle skills shortages among UK workers and help British companies compete with China, India and other emerging economies.

Announcing the launch of the government's new Skills White Paper, Education Secretary Ruth Kelly pledged to put "an end to dead-end jobs".

The paper includes plans for a National Employer Training Programme, which will deliver free flexible training for vocational qualifications, new pilot schemes to support vocational training at technician, craft and associate professional level skills and Skills Academies, which will focus on the needs of each major sector of the economy and help to raise the standards of status and value of vocational education and training.

The government said that it aimed to help adults gain basic skills of literacy, language and numeracy through free tuition under the Skills for Life programme. There are also plans to boost employability skills in adults, through free tuition up to NVQ Level 2. The government said that over 130,000 people have already benefited from Employer Training Pilots so far and it is estimated that an additional 500,000 adults will gain qualifications by 2010.

The government said that the reforms would be backed by "significant investment". In last week's Budget, it was announced that £1.5 billion would be invested in the long-term transformation of the capital infrastructure for colleges over the next five years.

Speaking at the launch of the White Paper, the Education Secretary said: "Too many adults in Britain still lack basic skills in literacy and numeracy and employers are concerned that they cannot recruit workers with the skills they need to be competitive. We need to tackle this and go even further to support more adults in achieving the higher end technician, craft and professional qualifications our economy needs to compete with the best. Improving our national skills base must be a joint endeavour between Government, employers, trade unions, universities, colleges and other training providers. If we tackle the challenges that face us we have a real opportunity to make a fundamental change."

(KmcA/MB)