You’re hired! 16,000 apprenticeships lined up
DAVID Cameron will today announce nearly 16,000 new apprenticeships in a drive to abolish youth unemployment.
The Prime Minister and Karren Brady – former star of BBC One’s The Apprentice – will visit a Costa Coffee branch to highlight plans for 6,000 apprentices at the chain by 2020.
Supermarket giant Morrisons will recruit 9,000, developers Crest Nicholson 200 and the National Grid 500.
Tory aides say 2.2 million apprentices were taken on under the coalition and the party has plans for three million more if elected.
Mr Cameron said last night: “There really has never been a better time to start an apprenticeship and it’s a huge leap forward to have even more of Britain’s most prestigious employers hiring apprentices.
“We want apprenticeships to be level- pegging with a university degree giving millions more people the dignity of work.” Baroness Brady said: “David Cameron’s commitment to delivering more apprenticeships is a fantastic boost for the long- term prospects of our young people.”
During his campaign day Mr Cameron encountered a giggling girl called Lucy. The six- year- old rested her head on the desk as the Prime Minister coaxed her through a difficult passage in a book at the Sacred Heart primary, near Bolton.
Mr Cameron was promoting the policy of making children resit Sats tests at secondary school if they do not reach the standard at primary.
Labour’s shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt said the plan for 100,000 pupils to resit English and maths was “a desperate attempt by the Tories to try to overshadow their failures on school standards”.