Northern Ireland Office

Northern Ireland needs a well trained workforce with the right skills to take its place in an increasingly challenging global market, Secretary of State Peter Hain MP said today.

Launching the new Skills and Science Fund at the Belfast Institute of Further and Higher Education (BIFHE), he said the two year funding package was a shot in the arm for everyone who wanted Northern Ireland to move forward.

“Business is attracted by a strong skills base and that’s what the new Skills and Science Fund is all about,” he said.

“We have to get our focus on increasing the skills base of the working population, both to secure the jobs we have and to become the sort of place inward investors want to do new business with,” he added.

Highlighting the global challenges faced by Northern Ireland he continued: “Unless Northern Ireland becomes internationally renowned for its skills base, we have no prospect of winning new business and creating the high class jobs necessary to ensure prosperity and growth.”

Peter Hain insisted the science track must run in parallel to the skills base with the promotion of closer links between industry and our scientific research capacity.

The Secretary of State went on to spell out the new Skills and Science package that will provide some £35million over the next two years to support his objectives.  

He detailed specific initiatives to be supported as part of the fund, including:

• Better collaboration between schools, colleges and training organisations.
• Local collaboration between Further Education Colleges and Schools to provide a much wider range of vocational education for the 14 -19 year olds.
• The development of a new Pre-Apprenticeship Programme for 14-16 age groups.
• Support for an initiative to encourage entrepreneurship in people of all ages.
• Increased funding for research to boost the level of knowledge transfer between academia and business.
• Assistance for the long-term unemployed and economically inactive to find sustainable employment via the New Deal and Pathways programmes.

Peter Hain also paid tribute to the wide range of outreach vocational, training and educational initiatives being taken by BIFHE in the greater Belfast area and added: “The investment in BIFHE’s new city centre campus is indeed a vote of confidence in the Institute and underlines its drive to make education and training pivotal to the real world of work.”

The Secretary of State announced that £0.7 million of the Fund is to be allocated to the “Step-Up” programme. This will help young people to progress in a flexible way along a ladder of skills and qualifications at their own learning pace.

“The key to a better and sustainable economy in Northern Ireland is to make that all important and timely connection between the needs of employers and our education and training systems. Today we are adding a further initiative to achieve that goal,” he said.

Earlier the Secretary of State was welcomed to the Millfield campus by Brian Turtle, Principal of BIFHE, and toured the workshops to see at first hand apprentice training in the plumbing, construction and engineering trades.

Notes to Editors:

1. In his announcement about the Investment Strategy and the Budget for 2006-2008 in December 2005, the Secretary of State promised extra money for three priority funding packages.
2. The packages targeted children and young people, skills and science and the environment and energy.
3. Media enquiries to the Department for Employment and Learning Press Office on 028 90257790.