Apprenticeship budgets face cuts

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8364657.stm

Apprenticeship and college budgets face public spending cuts, as the government publishes its skills strategy.
Ministers have argued boosting skills is critical to the recovery of the UK economy, but are reducing spending by £433m next year.

The National Institute of Adult Continuing Education said it was concerned that the budget for developmental learning will reduce from £330,769m this year would reduce to £186,696 million in 2010-11.
The number of funded learners aged 19 and over supported by these monies will fall from 703,000 in the last financial year to 213,000 in 2010-11, it added.

Now I am depressed..The generation I'm teaching at the moment are basically facing a very hard time to come.

Been there, done that,got the tee shirt already from the last time in the 70's.

I shall be hearing more of the why bother as there aren't any jobs/prospects to work for....like I did last time.

Well training in this country is at best pathetic anyway so this comes as no surprise to me i will not forget my time on a training scheme to get me back to work where i ended up as a free trainer for the centre making use of skills i already had rather then learning what i was there to do. All of that at a time when the centre underwent an ali inspection which showed they are about as much use as a chocolate fireguard. It makes me sick in this country that constantly bangs n about skills shortages when we havemore then enough people either leaving education or unemployed to fill those shortages if they could gain properly funded and supported training.

Originally Posted by RizzyKing

Well training in this country is at best pathetic anyway so this comes as no surprise to me i will not forget my time on a training scheme to get me back to work where i ended up as a free trainer for the centre making use of skills i already had rather then learning what i was there to do. All of that at a time when the centre underwent an ali inspection which showed they are about as much use as a chocolate fireguard. It makes me sick in this country that constantly bangs n about skills shortages when we havemore then enough people either leaving education or unemployed to fill those shortages if they could gain properly funded and supported training.

Agreed! The problem is that the government are constrained by finances particularly during a recession and that industry doesn't want to dip too deeply into their own pockets/profits if they can get the government to train people on their behalf instead, particularly as they tend to find the cheapest option every time when it comes to employing/training a workforce.