More than 70 apprenticeship opportunities have been created with funding from Greater Manchester Combined Authority for underrepresented groups.
The funding is part of GMCA’s Removing Barriers initiative, under Greater Manchester Young Person’s Guarantee, a commitment to young people in the city region.
A total of £328,000 has been handed to seven local organisations to help them attract apprentices.
The apprentices have been created for a variety of projects, including placements that support young people with special education needs and disabilities into digital apprenticeships and 20 pre-apprenticeship places and 10 apprenticeships for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic young people to learn engineering skills in Rochdale.
Councillor Sean Fielding, portfolio lead for digital, education, skills, work and apprenticeships, said: “It is great that we have been able to award funding to so many amazing local organisations that work to remove barriers to apprenticeships in our city-region.
“Expanding apprenticeship opportunities will enable people to find full time work, while also giving them the necessary skills to develop their careers.
“Apprenticeship placements and job opportunities should be accessible to everyone in the city-region, regardless of their background, and it is hoped even more placements under the Removing Barriers scheme will be created for underrepresented groups as the programme continues.”
Other projects to receive funding include Men in the Early Years, collaboration between Kids Planet nursery provider and the Fatherhood Institute offering 12 apprenticeship placements for men, Single Parent TA’s – creating a minimum of 10 Teaching Assistant apprenticeship placements for single parents - and Oldham 16-25 year olds, which is offering 10 placements to young people with additional barriers to employment.
GMCA said its Removing Barriers scheme will run as a ‘test and learn’ initiative, with plans to create further opportunities across the city region.
