Tertiary Education Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce has today announced that the Workplace Literacy and Numeracy fund will be extended to include industry trainees.

“Literacy and numeracy skills are critical to helping people succeed in the workplace and while they’re training. This change will mean that industry trainees starting out at Levels 1 and 2 on the NZ Qualifications Framework who need to improve their literacy and numeracy skills will be able to get help from specialist providers while they train.”

“The Workplace Literacy and Numeracy Fund is doing a great job of providing training and support for businesses and workers who see the need to lift literacy and numeracy in their workplaces. With this change and our previous decision to extend the time period businesses can access the Fund, it is now well placed to improve the skills of many more people,” Mr Joyce says.

As part of Budget 2016, the Government boosted the Workplace Literacy and Numeracy Fund by:

providing an additional $2 million to support around 600 more places in 2016 andproviding an additional $3 million for Workplace Literacy and Numeracy from 2017, enough for approximately 900 places.

This money comes from a combination of new money and by reducing the funding rates in the tertiary education organisation-led strand of the Workplace Literacy and Numeracy Fund.

The Government is also increasing the amount of training available to each worker through both the Workplace Literacy and Numeracy Fund and the Intensive Literacy and Numeracy Fund. Industry trainees can already access the Intensive Literacy and Numeracy fund.

“Both employers and trainees will benefit from this increased flexibility so they can further lift individuals' skill levels in the workplace. It demonstrates our commitment to improving workplace productivity and supporting personal success.”

A press release from the Beehive, June 23, 2016