{"id":1357,"date":"2016-09-02T11:15:02","date_gmt":"2016-09-02T11:15:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/?p=1357"},"modified":"2016-09-16T11:18:25","modified_gmt":"2016-09-16T11:18:25","slug":"column-we-needs-to-give-our-young-people-the-skills-to-succeed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/?p=1357","title":{"rendered":"Column: We Needs to Give Our Young People the Skills to Succeed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In his latest column for the Sevenoaks Chronicle, Michael has written about helping young people to develop skills:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Last month, unemployment in Sevenoaks fell to its lowest recorded level.\u00a0 Even more encouragingly, the level of youth unemployment in my constituency is now just one percent, down by over three quarters since 2010.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>I am always impressed by the students I meet when I visit schools in Sevenoaks.\u00a0 But academic achievement is only part of the story.\u00a0 To maintain this employment record, our young people need to be given the chance to develop the skills and experiences that it takes to succeed.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Opportunities like National Citizen Service (NCS) are the best way to do that.\u00a0 NCS has already enabled more than 200,000 teenagers, like those I\u2019ve met from Sevenoaks, to take part in adventure challenges, skills development and social action.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Research has shown that nine out of ten participants find their experience worthwhile.\u00a0 But it doesn\u2019t just benefit them.\u00a0 Getting involved is proven to make young people more likely to volunteer, more likely to vote, and more likely to be involved in their community.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Even on a smaller scale, opportunities like this can be found everywhere.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>In June I visited Supajam, an innovative project in Swanley which is successfully helping teenagers who have struggled in formal education to learn about the music industry and through it to learn basic lessons in numeracy and literacy.\u00a0 Instead of an uncertain future, the vast majority move into further education, employment or training when they leave.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Earlier this month I joined Westerham Sea Cadets for one of their regular boating sessions on Chipstead Lake.\u00a0 The Sea Cadets offer practical training in the water and the confidence-building and self-esteem that comes with it, as well as valuable courses and certificates.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>These opportunities are creating a new generation of well-rounded individuals with the skills they require to succeed.\u00a0 But they also have huge social benefits \u2013 strengthening our communities now and into the future.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In his latest column for the Sevenoaks Chronicle, Michael has written about helping young people to develop skills: Last month, unemployment in Sevenoaks fell to its lowest recorded level.\u00a0 Even more encouragingly, the level of youth unemployment in my constituency is now just one percent, down by over three quarters since 2010. I am always &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/?p=1357\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Column: We Needs to Give Our Young People the Skills to Succeed&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[464,440,107,80,481,12,9,434,28],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1357"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1357"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1358,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1357\/revisions\/1358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}