The government is to pay for hundreds of recent university graduates to go on gap year-style trips around the world as thousands struggle to find work during the recession, it emerged today.The scheme will help graduates take part in overseas expeditions with Raleigh International, working on development projects such as building schools and improving sanitation.It is designed to help them develop the "soft skills", such as leadership, teamwork and communication, which will make them more attractive to employers.The Times reported that the £500,000 scheme will fund up to 500 participants, who will be expected to raise £1,000 themselves and pay for their own flights and vaccinations for the trips, which would normally cost about £3,000 per person.A spokesman for Lord Mandelson's Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said details of the scheme's financing would not be available until its formal launch next week.He said it was intended to help young people from poorer backgrounds, who are often unable to access the sort of travel and adventure projects which help more well to do contemporaries improve their employability.
The government is to pay for hundreds of recent university graduates to go on gap year-style trips around the world as thousands struggle to find work during the recession, it emerged today.
The scheme will help graduates take part in overseas expeditions with Raleigh International, working on development projects such as building schools and improving sanitation.
It is designed to help them develop the "soft skills", such as leadership, teamwork and communication, which will make them more attractive to employers.
The Times reported that the £500,000 scheme will fund up to 500 participants, who will be expected to raise £1,000 themselves and pay for their own flights and vaccinations for the trips, which would normally cost about £3,000 per person.
A spokesman for Lord Mandelson's Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said details of the scheme's financing would not be available until its formal launch next week.
He said it was intended to help young people from poorer backgrounds, who are often unable to access the sort of travel and adventure projects which help more well to do contemporaries improve their employability.
lost your job? save up £1000 (somehow) and bugger off and invest it in the third world, we'll buy your ticket.
reminds me of those £10 boat trips to australia in the 50's.
better than having to deal with disgruntled oiks blaming the government and da bankstas.
go dig a well or something useful! think of it as a character building holiday, bound to get you a job in middle management when (if) you get back, or maybe you'll meet a dusky native and settle down ala Gauguin. better than the dole queue in the elephant and castle...
kidding aside, this will have a semi-intelligent side effect of opening a few minds. daft, or foxy clever, ya gets to choose. might be a surprising number of folks delighted to bail for sunnier climes on the taxpayers' money. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
Yet another wheeze to transfer money from the working class poor to the already comfortably provided for upper middle classes.
FFS !!! keep to the Fen Causeway
