£35m fund awarded to boost NI skills base

Secretary of State Peter Hain has today announced a £35 million fund to help boost the skills base in Northern Ireland.

Mr Hain said the two-year package for the Skills and Science Fund at the Belfast Institute of Further and Higher Education "was a shot in the arm for everyone who wanted Northern Ireland to move forward."

Mr Hain highlighted the importance of increasing the skills base of the working population in order to secure the jobs we have, to encourage new investors to the province, and to give current investors the adequate skills to be able to compete in a worldwide market.

He said: “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.”

The Belfast Institute, which hopes to benefit from a portion of the funding, is currently training approximately 400 technology apprentices and helping schools to educate pupils who do not intend to follow the academic route.

At today's launch Peter Hain 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 also announced that £0.7 million of the Fund is to be allocated to the “Step-Up” programme, which will help young people to progress in a flexible way along a ladder of skills and qualifications at their own learning pace.

He said: “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." He concluded by saying that today further initiatives are being added to achieve that goal.

(EF/SP)