The Skills Minister, Matthew Hancock, has announced plans for a new Traineeship programme to provide young people with the skills, attitudes and experience to secure and sustain employment through ‘on the job’ training.

The Private Equity Foundation welcomes the proposal for Traineeships as a clearly defined alternative route to work for young people. It implements many of the key recommendations in the Wolf Report on vocational education and Richard Review on Apprenticeships , and delivers on the commitments in the Coalition Agreement to work pairing.

We submitted the following response to the consultation to support the development of the Traineeship delivery and funding model, in collaboration with our partner charities, Workingrite, ThinkForward and Tomorrow’s people, and our business network. As an intermediary, we are in a unique position to be able to represent the voice of both providers and employers, as well as young people themselves.

Read the full submission

Our key recommendations to maximise the success of Traineeships can be summarised as follows:

• Build on what works – Local as well as national providers and employers with a track record in delivering core components of Traineeships (work placements, work skills training and mentoring) should be involved in designing and developing the Traineeship programme.
• Start early – Research has shown that young people would benefit from access to the world of work before embarking on a traineeship to be successful, as well as high quality advice at school.  For those that are disaffected, the Traineeship programme needs to encourage providers to prepare and motivate young people at 14 to 16 years so that they do not move further away from the job market.
• Work placements are key – Placements that provide an authentic experience of the world of work should be the core component of Traineeships.
• Training needs to be personalised and relevant – Traineeships should leave trainees with skills that are in demand by employers in the local labour market. Any training needs to be personalised to the young person’s needs and learning style, and introduced at a pace and quantity in line with the young person’s development as an employee.
• Transparent and accessible funding model – Funding should be directly accessible to all providers, including successful small, local providers in the voluntary sector, and reflect the level of quality needed to deliver the programme successfully.
• No financial barriers for young people – The Traineeship model will not work if there is no allowance paid to the young trainee. There should be a government contribution towards the young people’s training allowance – but not all the costs. We believe there is      merit in exploring a model whereby the training allowance paid to each young person is a funding split between government and business.

We are setting up a cross-sector roundtable in the upcoming weeks. Please get in touch with us if you are interested in joining us. Together we can shape a successful Traineeship programme and network of providers and employers that delivers positive outcomes for young people.

Email: info@privateequityfoundation.org for more informati0n.

As 2012 draws to a close many of us will start to reflect on the successes and good feeling generated by the Olympic and Paralympic Games. We will start to think about the coming year with a renewed sense of optimism and even make resolutions, that we may or may not struggle to keep and which we anticipate will make a difference to how 2013 unfolds.

 

This year has seen the number of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) stay resolutely above the one million mark.  Through our work with charities focused on helping young people reach their full potential PEF is resolved to make a difference.  So often young people, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds are unable to access the opportunities which could help ensure positive pathways into employment, we are determined to ensure that they do.  However the responsibility lies not only with organisations like PEF.  Each of us can play our part to ensure the NEET figures don’t continue to rise in 2013.

 

According to the European Foundation for Improvement of Living and Working Conditions in their report launched in November 2012 which looks at the NEETS population across the EU; the UK has the second highest number of NEET’s in Europe.  Clearly there is more we can learn from our European neighbours, such as Youth Guarantee Initiatives, Second Chance Schools, and Employer incentives; all of which are having a positive impact on the numbers of NEET young people in other member states.  Perhaps the suggestion by Vince Cable that all 18 year olds would be encouraged and supported to ‘learn or earn’ i.e. study or work, as they do in Australia, rather than join the increasing numbers of young people who are unemployed is one way forward, but it is clear we all have a responsibility to tackle this issue, it’s bigger than a single organisation or government can fix and too important to ignore.

 

Each of us can make a difference to the positive transitions into employment that young people need to make if they are to be successful in their adult life and for many this is about having the right opportunities. As 2012 draws to a close, let’s all consider what we can to do to enable young people to have and make the most of these opportunities.   Could you contact your local school and offer to speak to students about your work or business, invite a group of students to visit your work place or maybe even provide a work experience opportunity for one or two young people?  Do you know a young person who is interested in a particular career?  Can you help connect them to people working in that industry?

 

Let 2013 be the year that all of us resolve to play our part and make a difference to the lives of young people in our communities.

 

Carol Jackson

Portfolio Manager, Private Equity Foundation