Both men were speaking at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, and Mak made his comments at a fringe event supported World Skills UK, the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, the Chartered Insurance Institute, the Open University and Alstom.
Mak said that apprenticeships are good for workers, “because it improves their skills, good for productivity and good for the companies involved. Our job this week is to spread the message across the whole country into every sector, into every industry, into every region, into every nation of the United Kingdom”.
‘We must boost profile of apprenticeships’
He also confirmed that as a member of the government, “We all have a duty to try and boost apprenticeships and spread their profile”.
Mak is currently chair of parliament’s All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Entrepreneurship. His presence at the Apprenticeship Forum reception cemented the forum’s status “one of the most important events that we have at conference this week, putting the future of work and the future of the economy right at the top of the political agenda.”
Mak’s commitment to boosting the status and popularity of apprentices was evidenced, he said, by the number of job fairs he had organised in his Havant constituency. The most recent fair, the MP said, saw 550 jobs on offers from 50 local employers.
Article courtesy of Apprentice Eye (www.apprenticeeye.co.uk)
