Speaking in the Assembly Chamber this week, North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood called for a Welsh Government Statement acknowledging that Monday marked the beginning of the 10th UK National Apprenticeship Week (NAW 2017).
Apprenticeships can offer training, real career opportunities and a skilled and committed workforce.
NAW 2017 will bring together employers and apprentices to celebrate the success of apprenticeships over the last decade, and seek to encourage even more people to choose apprenticeships as a fast-track to a great career.
In this week’s Business Statement Mr Isherwood called for a Statement on NAW 2017 “not to recycle the arguments we’ve already had here around the Apprenticeship Levy, but the broader issues that are being brought to the fore.”
Speaking in the Chamber, he said: “For example many charities, like the National Deaf Children’s Society, are disappointed, putting it politely, that apprenticeships won’t be covered by the proposed new Additional Learning Needs Legislation as it currently stands, and such as new research by Centrica, owner of British Gas, which found that nearly one in two young people in Wales would be attracted to work for a company with opportunities across the UK, compared to just over one in four young people in Wales who didn’t believe this was a priority for them.
He added: “Although university is still viewed as the ideal start, and most people surveyed don’t view apprenticeships as the best starting point to reach senior positions, 90 per cent of Centrica’s apprentices, for example - I’m sure that’s reciprocated elsewhere - feel better equipped for the world of work than friends who went to college or university.”