National programmes to promote youth training

The importance of education and training to this country's national performance is increasingly recognized. The introduction of the Youth Training Scheme, offering a year's workbased foundation training to 16- and 17-year-old entrants to the labour market, marks a major advance on Britain's poor record in this field. This article describes the Scheme's aims and mode of operation, traces its long gestation and reviews the progress during its first year. It relates the Scheme to wider national objectives for the development of training and to complementary initiatives in education, and discusses how it might be evaluated.