Employers to shoulder training targets
Workplace training is to be revamped to reach a new government target of a quarter of young people entering modern apprenticeships before they are 22. Ministers have called on employers to help more people into apprenticeships. There will be an entitlement to a modern apprenticeship place for all 16 and 17-year-olds with five or more GCSE passes at grades A to G and new technical certificates to ensure technical knowledge is built into the apprenticeship diploma.
Morris demands rethink on capping
The government is considering scrapping caps on student numbers at individual universities. Education Secretary Estelle Morris has told the Higher Education Funding Council for England to devise a mechanism of targets for the sector. In doing so it should consider whether maximum student numbers for each institution are still useful.
Rushed cloning ban to become law
Emergency legislation banning human cloning is to become law next week after being rushed through all its Commons stages in one day. It will ban cloned embryos from being implanted into wombs but does not ban therapeutic cloning.
Museum fees abolished
Admission charges to the country’s top museums are being scrapped. From tomorrow, entry to attractions including the Natural History Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Imperial War Museum will be free.
Student death prompts calls for reform
Demands for a change in the law today followed a company’s clearance on corporate manslaughter charges after the death of a student in a harbour accident. Simon Jones, 24, a Sussex University student of Banbury, Oxfordshire, was killed in May 1998 while unloading a ship at Shoreham Harbour, West Sussex.