Graduate Recruitment Bureau backs new government skills plans

Posted By Alex Turner

Proposals to expand advanced apprenticeships and increase training programmes have been backed by the Graduate Recruitment Bureau (GRB).

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills revealed the new plan earlier this week in a bid to create more job opportunities and to help people gain valuable skills.

Under the scheme, 35,000 new apprenticeship places will be created over the next two years.

Personal skills accounts, providing new information on different courses and colleges, will also be introduced in a move that business secretary Lord Mandelson claimed would "radically simplify" how skills policy is delivered.

Dan Hawes, co-founder of the GRB, said employers are currently in a biased market where they can "pick and choose" candidates due to the high number of graduates.

As such they are looking in detail at the quality of degrees, grades, A-level results and host of other criteria before making decisions, he claimed.

"Any initiative that increases the skills of people entering the workforce and meets the needs of employers is going to give them a valuable injection of skills. I think it is a good idea," he added.