Apprenticeships Event at Grove Technology Park

This morning I attended an event at Grove Technology Park called 'Making Sense of Apprenticeships', which was put on for businesses to come along to find out more about taking on apprentices under the new national government scheme.  The panel (see photo above) included representatives from the National Apprenticeships Service, Oxfordshire County Council, APEX Recruitment and a young apprentice taken on by them who has nearly completed her training.  

There were about twenty businesses there to hear about how to go about recruiting apprentices, the grants available under the scheme and the help and advice they can receive from the experts on the panel.  Oxfordshire has approximately 4,370 apprentices which is actually up from last year by 26.7%.  Nationally, the figure is up by 13.5% since the scheme began.

I was pleased to be there to listen to what was on offer, but also to give some closing comments to a very successful morning.  It was a great opportunity to support this event happening locally and also to endorse what the coalition government is attempting to do to address getting young people into work and training.

 National Apprenticeship Week 2013 is taking place from 11 to 15 March. Visit apprenticeships.org.uk for information on  how to get involved and to download the National Apprenticship Week 2013 toolkit.