LONDON (UK) – In what is seen as a bid to enhance productivity and help the nation recover from the pandemic crisis, Britain will start training programmes for adults so that they learn new skills, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to announce on Tuesday.
With the job furlough scheme, which was introduced when the pandemic broke out, expiring next month, the current unemployment rate of over 4% is slated to soar further. So the government has decided to roll out a job support programme.
“We cannot, alas, save every job. What we can do is give people the skills to find and create new and better jobs,” the prime minister will say in his speech, according to excerpts released by his office.
“We’re transforming the foundations of the skills system so that everyone has the chance to train and retrain.”
As part of the initiative, there will be funds to enable adults sans qualifications to enroll for certain college courses without paying fees and flexible loans will be given to enable people to space out their study and transfer credits between higher education institutions.
There will also be efforts to boost the number of apprenticeships, with more money going into small and medium companies to help them take apprentices. It will also extend a pilot programme named digital skill boot camps to new locations.
The government said the number of people undergoing vocational training has dipped over the past 20 years and 10% of British adults had a higher technical qualification as their highest educational qualification, compared with 20% in Germany and 34% in Canada.
Businesses in the country have complained of shortage of people with skills in the workforce.