Gordon's paying for their gap years...
Discussion
Looks like a good grounding for some experience, and it could help them getting a job on their return with a better CV. The Grads still have to raise £1000, buy their own flights and cover the cost of vaccinations. I'm glad the Government are helping out students. I wonder what the criteria is to get on board, I assume you have to have the correct socio-economic background 
EDIT:
Found it.............. Applicants will also have to prove an overseas expedition would be beyond their means without the bursary
EDIT:
Found it.............. Applicants will also have to prove an overseas expedition would be beyond their means without the bursary
Edited by SoapyShowerBoy on Saturday 1st August 13:10
This sums it up nicely.
BBC said:
Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the Taxpayer's Alliance, said the latest scheme was a "headline grabber" that would put a dent in taxpayers' pockets.
"The government needs to stop spending. It needs to focus on creating the right economic climate to allow entrepreneurs and business men to be able to hire new graduates," he said.
Just goes to show how out of touch Brown is, if he's doing this in a desperate attempt at votes then he won't get any because students usually don't vote/don't get up in time/forget."The government needs to stop spending. It needs to focus on creating the right economic climate to allow entrepreneurs and business men to be able to hire new graduates," he said.
I reckon the editor of The Times has got it right.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_a...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_a...
Times leading article said:
Pity this year’s new graduates. The class of 2009 were the first to be saddled with top-up fees. While they acquired debts of up to £20,000 each, the financial sky caved in and destroyed their job prospects. Some bright spark at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has come up with a cunning wheeze to help this lost generation to find itself — send it on a gap year.
The Government’s new bursary scheme will give 500 graduates from low-income families the chance to have a gap year. Some taxpayers may think that this is a waste of their money at a time of ballooning national debt, shrinking tax receipts and a rising welfare bill. But these graduates will cost us anyway: 80,000 of them are expected to be unemployed this summer, each eligible for a jobseeker’s allowance of £50.95 a week.
Why not save the cash, boost the unemployment figures and send them all on holiday? With economies of scale helping to cut costs, we could dispatch them to the beach for the summer with backpacks full of baked beans and lager. We could offer a choice; Ibiza for the ravers, Goa for those who want some social problems with their beach. Alternatively, for the same price as ten days’ worth of jobseeker’s allowance, we could buy the lovely Tipaemaua island in Polynesia, on sale for a mere £5.9 million. We could ship them all out, supply basic survival gear and save taxpayers the cost of keeping them until the job market picks up. The anthropology graduates, at least, would have the time of their lives.
Or we could spend hundreds of thousands of pounds sending fewer than 1 per cent of them on gap years while the rest languish at home. Now that really would be absurd.
Labour really is on meltdown scorched earth policy. Fools.The Government’s new bursary scheme will give 500 graduates from low-income families the chance to have a gap year. Some taxpayers may think that this is a waste of their money at a time of ballooning national debt, shrinking tax receipts and a rising welfare bill. But these graduates will cost us anyway: 80,000 of them are expected to be unemployed this summer, each eligible for a jobseeker’s allowance of £50.95 a week.
Why not save the cash, boost the unemployment figures and send them all on holiday? With economies of scale helping to cut costs, we could dispatch them to the beach for the summer with backpacks full of baked beans and lager. We could offer a choice; Ibiza for the ravers, Goa for those who want some social problems with their beach. Alternatively, for the same price as ten days’ worth of jobseeker’s allowance, we could buy the lovely Tipaemaua island in Polynesia, on sale for a mere £5.9 million. We could ship them all out, supply basic survival gear and save taxpayers the cost of keeping them until the job market picks up. The anthropology graduates, at least, would have the time of their lives.
Or we could spend hundreds of thousands of pounds sending fewer than 1 per cent of them on gap years while the rest languish at home. Now that really would be absurd.
BBC said:
It will pay for 500 young people under the age of 24 to travel
BBC said:
The government was giving Raleigh £500,000 to support graduates "who otherwise could not afford to go," he added.
They have to come up with the cash to get there, plus £1K, and the govt will give them another grand. Doesnt seem a particular waste of money, IMHO. Especially when compared to, say, the scrappage scheme. I dont think it's outrageous, I just dont think it's front-page (or any page) news.Edited by glazbagun on Saturday 1st August 23:18
Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff