The Education Secretary, David Blunkett, is investing £250m in new National Traineeships which will provide vocational qualifications for 16 and 17-year-olds that have left formal education.

The traineeships, announced at the Confederation of British Industry annual conference in Birmingham, will provide broad-based vocational qualifications equivalent to five GCSEs.

The measures are aimed at 75,000 youngsters who are not in work or training or at school, and another 85,000 who are in unskilled jobs, lacking qualifications and with little hope of training.

David Blunkett told the CBI: "Everyone deserves the chance to learn"

Making the announcement, Mr Blunkett said everyone should be able to fulfil their true potential.

"We made a commitment to get every 16 and 17-year-old on the road to a full qualification," he said, "and we are now developing our strategy for achieving this."

Mr Blunkett said improved careers guidance would be a part of the strategy.

"The Careers and Youth Service, Training and Enterprise Councils and colleges will identify and contact young people who have fallen through the gaps, and tackle the barriers discouraging young people from taking part in further education after they left full-time schooling," he said.

"It is essential for schools, colleges and trainers to work together with employers to offer these young people a better future."

Grants

The extra funds will expand the pilot projects for National Traineeships, which are currently training 8,000 young people.

There will also be a scheme to provide grants of about £35 a week for disadvantaged young people who enter the traineeship scheme. At present they are eligible only for state benefits - paid to their families not to themselves.

Commenting on this idea, the Conservative employment spokesman, Damian Green, said the idea was "half-baked": "Only months after taking maintenance grants away from students, causing a fall in access to universities for mature students, the government has re-introduced them for a different group. This is a serious inconsistency.

"It is not clear what will stop someone leaving school for a week, then reclaiming the allowance when they re-enter full time education.

"Also, if the allowance is paid to youngsters who have left home, but to their parents if they are still at home, how does the government avoid providing an incentive to leave home?"

Work experience

Mr Blunkett is also encouraging universities to give more work experience to students on arts and humanities courses with no obvious career path.

Employers have complained about graduates leaving college with little understanding of how businesses work.

Some UK universities already have good practice which ministers want to spread.

Chester College requires all its students to do work experience. Five hundred students each summer spend four weeks on a placement with local business for which they are credited in their study modules.

Social science students at Sheffield University are expected to spend time in business or the public sector on work-related projects.

The move was welcomed by the Association of University Teachers.

Its General Secretary, David Triesman, said: 'Students want options and need to exercise choice in what they study and what they do afterwards.