HSBC is to offer apprenticeships and training in management techniques
to young people in care as part of a £305million ($610m) UK government
programme.
The bank became involved following the intervention of the education
secretary Alan Johnson, who wants businesses to play a leading part in
the initiative during the next four years.
The government’s contribution, outlined in the recent Care Matters
white paper, will include a £500 annual budget for every child in care
at risk of falling behind educationally, to be spent on books and
after-school activities, and a £2000 university bursary.
The HSBC Global Education Trust will guarantee places on its training
programme for ‘high fliers’. The bank is also providing resources to
make it easier for young people leaving care to join its management
academy, work for HSBC and attend college on day release.
Johnson said the government wanted to ‘facilitate a long-term dialogue
between private companies and the care system, exploring the potential
for building major sponsorship programmes which increase opportunities
for children in care across the board’. His department is also talking
to Citi, Deutsche Bank and BSkyB, and BT has undertaken to offer care
leavers some of the 450 apprenticeships that it runs each year.
HSBC is putting in £1m, which is expected to benefit up to 1000
children in care. An estimated 60,000 children are in care in the UK at
any one time.
The education trust set up by the bank works in a number of areas, among them the teaching of Mandarin.
