Apprenticeships on the menu

KYP hosted a business dinner for BME Businesses to raise their awareness of the opportunities and benefits of apprenticeships in supporting their business growth.

Guest speakers Cheryl Eastwood, Rochdale Borough Council Executive Director, Shafqat Rahim, NAS Employer Account Manager, and Chuko Odudo, Better Leads, talked about their experiences of the apprenticeship programme.

Cheryl Eastwood, Executive Director Children’s Services said: “It was good to see so many people committed to encouraging young people and contributing to the prosperity of the borough. Apprenticeships are a great way for young people to get on the path to qualifications and experience work at the same time”.

Chuko Odudu, Business Development Manager at Better Leads, provided a presentation on the benefits of taking on apprenticeships and how his business was now able to be competitive with overseas competitors. Chuko said: "The opportunity to take on apprentices fresh out of school, to nurture their talents and mould them into our company’s culture and way of working enables us to grow our own workforce”. He went on to state that he relocated from Manchester to Rochdale in order to tap into the higher number of young people within the borough that are not in education, employment or training (NEET) as this gave him a larger pool of talent to recruit from.

Andrew Turner, Work Based Learning Progression Officer, Rochdale Borough Council, provided the business delegates with an exclusive insight into the extra help being developed to support employers and young peoplr. This included extra incentives for employers to target apprenticeship recruitment for young people who are in the NEET group. This incentive is over and above the government’s £1,500 apprenticeship grant.

Zulf Ahmed, KYP’s Director of Learning & Skills, said: “Apprenticeships are a great way to provide opportunities for young people especially in the current economic climate. Apprenticeships provide young people with the opportunity to learn whilst they earn. Employers benefit from employing apprentices as they help to fill skills gaps, help businesses to tap into new talent and develop the skills of their workforce to make them more competitive.”