Cumbria apprenticeship target smashed (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Cumbria apprenticeship target smashed

4:30pm Tuesday 15th November 2011 in Allerdale news By Kate Proctor, Reporter

CUMBRIAN business owners have smashed targets to create more than 1,000 apprenticeship places in the past four months as part of a major campaign.

The National Apprenticeship Service challenged the region to create 100 apprenticeships for young people within 100 days but at a conference in Kendal it was announced that 1,139 new places had been made available.

Moria Tattersall from the Cumbria Work Based Learning Forum described the achieve-ment as ‘astonishing news’.

She said: “We’re the least populated part of the country but look at what we can do – to get so many people to create apprenticeships within this time frame is astonishing. There’s not much in terms of business and services in Cumbria that we don’t do, therefore this gives us the opportunity to have diverse apprenticeship opportunities and I am so pleased that people have responded so positively.”

The ‘100 in 100’ scheme to create emplyment and training opportunities for young people was organised by the National Apprenticeship Service with Cumbria County Council and the Cumbria Work Places Learning Forum.

Apprenticeships in a range of areas have now been set up including health and social care, beauty and hairdressing and catering.

New apprentice Laura Park of Kendal is one of the hundreds of youngsters in Cumbria who are backing the scheme. She is working towards an NVQ with the Oaklea Trust which provides support for people with learning disabilities and said: “It’s great so many young people are going to get the same opportunity as me. Because I’m working every day I get far more experience than studying for health and social care just from the classroom.”

Leader of Cumbria County Council Eddie Martin said it was schemes like this that would help tackle Cumbria’s levels of child poverty.

He said: “Around 6,000 people in our rural communities live in child poverty.

“This also brings poverty of aspiration and ambition. "The only way to get out of poverty is to grow our way out. "To make a profit you’re to have skilled people and the the success of this scheme is an important milestone.”

He added: “Cumbria has 25,000 businesses. If we have just five per cent of those businesses would take an apprentice our youth unemployment would be solved.”