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<p>We are investing £3.8 billion in further education and skills, to ensure people
can access high-quality training and education that leads to good jobs, addresses
skills gaps, boosts productivity and supports levelling up.</p><p>We are introducing
T Levels, boosting access to high quality technical education for thousands of 16-19
year olds. Young people in Swindon are now benefitting from these new qualifications,
as New College Swindon began teaching T Levels in Digital, Education & Childcare,
Health and Science from September last year.</p><p>The department is also committed
to supporting more people to benefit from the high-quality training that apprenticeships
offer, including those at the start of their career or those looking to retrain. Funding
for apprenticeships will grow to £2.7 billion by financial year 2024-25, delivering
the first increase to employer-led apprenticeships funding since financial year 2019-20.
We are also investing over £550 million by financial year 2024-25 to make sure adults
can upskill to reach their potential, delivering on the National Skills Fund commitment.</p><p>The
Free Courses for Jobs offer, launched in April 2021, gives adults the chance to access
their first level 3 qualification for free. We have also recently announced that from
April, any adult in England earning under the National Living Wage annually (£18,525)
or unemployed, will also be able to access these qualifications for free, regardless
of their prior qualification level. New Swindon College is amongst many training providers
who have been allocated funding to deliver this offer.</p><p>Complementing this, Skills
Bootcamps offer free, flexible courses of up to 16 weeks, giving people the opportunity
to build up sector-specific skills and fast-track to an interview with an employer.
Skills Bootcamps are now available in areas across the country as well as online,
covering digital, technical, construction, logistics (HGV driving), and green skills.
In Swindon, Skills Bootcamps in HGV driving are currently available. We continue to
expand Skills Bootcamps further, and more courses will become available across England
over the next few months.</p><p>We are also launching Multiply, a new £560 million
programme to help people improve their basic numeracy skills through free digital
training, flexible courses and tutoring. Launching in Spring 2022, the Multiply programme
is in addition to the England-wide statutory entitlement for numeracy and will give
people who don’t have at least a GCSE Grace C/4 or equivalent in maths, access to
free new flexible courses to improve their maths skills. This will include a new website
with bitesize training and online tutorials, as well as flexible courses.</p><p>Apprenticeships
have long been a growth area for New College Swindon and in September 2021, the college
opened the Swindon and Wiltshire Institute of Technology, with a mission to be a high-quality
employer-led training facility delivering high level technical and digital skills
training for young people and to those already in employment.</p>
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