Colin King MP
National Party Associate Education Spokeswoman
(Trade Training)

6 December 2007

Labour tries to justify apprenticeship con

Labour’s modern apprenticeship scheme is such an abject failure that the Minister is now fiddling the figures to attempt to reach its target, says National’s Associate Education spokesman, Colin King.

“All of a sudden, Pete Hodgson is claiming that the target of 14,000 funded places for modern apprentices includes the number of apprentices who have already completed their training.

“Never mind that employers have always believed that the figure of 14,000 funded places would be a running target – as one apprentice finished training, another would take their place - so there would always be 14,000 modern apprentices in training.

“Because the scheme has been such a flop, with appalling dropout rates, Labour is now claiming the 14,000 figure would be the total of all apprentices ever going through the scheme.

“If that’s the case, we will see a continued drop in the number of apprentices on the modern apprenticeships scheme as more complete their training. How is this expected to raise the skill levels of our young people?

“Labour has spent more than $100 million on a con that will produce ever-decreasing numbers of trained apprentices, while attempting to boast it is doing the opposite.

“Pete Hodgson needs to explain to employers why Labour’s grand plan to boost the number of apprentices has fallen so flat that they are changing the rules to mask the failure.”

ENDS

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