A new initiative will give 20 unemployed young people the opportunity to develop skills and further job prospects in the ICT sector.
Employment and Learning Minister, Stephen Farry has praised the scheme – a partnership between Wholeschool Software in West Belfast and the Department for Employment and Learning – which will help young people gain valuable skills and work experience.
The Minister said: “My Department welcomes the opportunity to work with employers to provide work placements for young unemployed people and to develop their employability skills. This partnership with Wholeschool Software, will allow the participants to acquire and develop the skills sought by employers in this growth sector of software development and programming.”
Wholeschool Software, a local company specialising in online software platforms for the Education sector, has developed a proven “Fast-Track”Â? training approach that has been successful in taking young people with few qualifications and developing them into ICT professionals.
The Department for Employment and Learning is supporting the project through the Youth Employment Scheme, which provides sector relevant work experience opportunities which are supported by employer subsidies.
The Minister concluded: “It is heartening to see that employers like Wholeschool are willing to offer opportunities to help facilitate and enable the skills development of our next generation. This is much more than employers meeting their corporate social responsibility commitments – this is about investing in the development of their workforce, with government support, to improve their business performance and grow our local economy.”Â?
Frank McGonagle, Technical Director of Wholeschool said: “This is a fantastic “win-win” situation for our business in that we are breaking down the barriers to entry for young unemployed people to enter into an ICT career. I believe that Wholeschool is a great working model and recipe of what is possible through creative and joined up thinking.”Â?
Participants will be paid a training allowance of £100 a week while on the skills development programme and employers will also receive help with training costs up to a maximum of £750. For further information on the Department’s Youth Employment Scheme, visit http://www.nidirect.gov.uk/yes.
Meanwhile, in Nijobfinder today Lagan Construction Group are recruiting for five positions. The family- run business provide high-quality civil engineering and building solutions and are seeking to employ technicians, operators and a quality manager for their Northern Ireland operations.
The company seek to offer employees an environment where they feel ‘safe and secure’, ‘valued and respected’ and ‘developed and challenged’.