Iain Stewart
Main Page: Iain Stewart (Conservative - Milton Keynes South)Department Debates - View all Iain Stewart's debates with the Department for Education
(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Michael Gove
Any author poorly taught can put children off for life, but more and more lessons are being taught well in our schools. As the chief inspector has pointed out, we have more good and outstanding schools than ever before. I had the opportunity recently to see children from a special school, a primary school and a secondary school—Burlington Danes academy—all perform Shakespeare productions in the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s flat. I was blown away by the quality of their verse speaking. I believe that Shakespeare has the power to move and touch every child, and I know that John Clare would have thought exactly the same. That peasant poet understood that he stood in a tradition of great literary figures, of whom Shakespeare was another grammar school boy made good.
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
7. What steps he is taking to ensure more employers offer apprenticeships to 16 to 18-year-olds.
The Minister for Skills and Enterprise (Matthew Hancock)
Apprenticeship reforms are putting employers in the driving seat of designing world-class standards for apprenticeships, and making it easier for them to offer apprenticeships in the future. I can announce to the House today that David Meller of the Meller Education Trust has agreed to become the new chair of the apprenticeship ambassadors network, with a brief of expanding and encouraging that network further and boosting apprenticeships once again.
Iain Stewart
I recently visited SMC Pneumatics in my constituency to meet its apprentices. It has an excellent apprenticeship programme, run in conjunction with Milton Keynes college. One suggestion made to me was that to get the most out of their apprenticeship, apprentices need a good mentor to support them. Will the Minister assure me that his Department will do all it can to facilitate a network of voluntary mentors?
Matthew Hancock
Yes, I absolutely will. I have visited Milton Keynes with my hon. Friend and seen some of the excellent work on apprenticeships there. Of course, from time immemorial an apprenticeship has been not just a skills programme but a mentoring programme that shows people what it takes to work and succeed in a career. Modern apprenticeships do that too.