Keir Starmer unveils plan to help one million schoolkids in major tech drive
Youngsters will be able to access more job opportunities in tech under a major drive to skill up Britain.
The PM will announce plans to help around one million school-age children gain skills in technology under a new TechFirst scheme. It will help to prepare kids should they want to become AI engineers, computer scientists or data analysts in the future.
TechFirst, whose name is inspired by the teaching training programme Teach First, will be backed by £187million of government money. Some £24million will go to school-aged children, while just over £90m will pay for 1,000 undergraduate and masters scholarships to university.
It means some young people will have the opportunity to attend university for free for courses including AI, cybersecurity and computer science. Nearly £50million will go towards PhD students.
Mr Starmer said: 'We are putting the power of AI into the hands of the next generation – so they can shape the future, not be shaped by it.
'This training programme will unlock opportunity in every classroom – and lays the foundations for a new era of growth. Too many children from working families like the one I grew up in are written off. I am determined to end that. "
Under TechFirst, school kids will likely go on trips to universities or tech companies, where they can learn technical skills such as programming robots. Technology Secretary Peter Kyle, who has previously described feeling embarrassed at school due to his dyslexia, said opening up doors for kids by helping them gain the skills they need is 'personal for me'.
Speaking on a visit to a cyber training scheme for kids in Manchester, he told The Mirror: 'As somebody who has a neurological barrier to learning, I can see how many of the young people who I'm meeting today are flourishing in this new environment.
'They're embracing the technology which is helping them succeed academically, but also finding those personal characteristics which in traditional times gone past have been suppressed, ignored or looked down on.
'They are now finding a way to be rewarded and celebrated. For me, that is actually quite emotional to see.'
Mr Kyle said the economy is 'shifting towards a demand for digitally-enabled skills'.
He said technology is no longer a subject of its own but is embraced by all areas, such as being a tool to help kids learn maths or using AI to analyse sports performance in PE lessons.
He said his aim wasn't for all kids to work in tech but for technology to be able to 'unlock' opportunities for young people. I want one thing for young people to believe, and that's whatever their potential is, they can achieve it,' he said.
'I think the thing I hope most for young people is that they discover and have the opportunity to figure out what that is.' As part of the Government's drive to skill up the country, big tech companies have agreed to make their internal training resources publicly available for free.
The firms involved include Microsoft, Google, BA Systems and Barclays. It is hoped the move will give 7.5million workers - a fifth of the working-age population - the tech skills they need by 2030.
The Government is understood to believe it has 'talked the talk' long enough on tech and now must deliver in skilling up the nation in areas such as coding or cybersecurity. It is hoped this will help to fill gaping skills in the workforce, including engineers and data scientists.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
28 minutes ago
- The Guardian
The economic roundtable is Jim Chalmers' chance for bold reform. Australians can't afford anything less
Jim Chalmers had a determined look about him this week, ahead of the government's much-hyped economic reform roundtable in Canberra. The atmosphere in the treasurer's office was reminiscent of the days immediately before a federal budget, with frenetic activity and an air of sleep deprivation among the small army of advisers. Preparations for the three-day event have been exhaustive and Chalmers works at a pace few people in the ministerial wing can sustain. Armed with a small page of handwritten notes, Chalmers told this column that the process of consulting with hundreds of individuals and organisations about how to turn around the country's productivity challenges had been more than worthwhile, as 30-odd attenders prepare to take their seats at the cabinet table on Tuesday morning. There's no doubt new approaches are needed. Productivity has barely grown at all since 2016. The stagnation in the Australian economy poses a threat to living standards, since working smarter is the long-run driver of securing higher incomes for households. Ken Henry, the former Treasury boss and summit invitee, puts the challenge another way. He calculates Australian workers have lost about $500,000 in potential pay rises over the past 25 years because of sclerotic productivity growth. 'I see it as three days to help inform three budgets,' Chalmers said, sitting at a conference table in the office previously occupied by Wayne Swan, his former boss and mentor. Family photos and a curated collection of books about politics and history dominate the space. Conscious of messaging and expectations in Canberra and beyond, Chalmers said outcomes from the roundtable would fuel and inform future decisions of the government, helping set a direction for Labor in this term of parliament an others to come. Solutions to emerging problems such as AI and an ageing population are also badly needed. Sign up: AU Breaking News email The event itself has required more than a little productivity already. Treasury received 900 submissions – twice the number of pitches received before Labor's jobs and skills summit early in the government's first term. Chalmers has held boardroom talks with business leaders and lobby groups, while ministers have convened more than 40 preparatory meetings of their own, attended by about 700 people. The Productivity Commission has released a slew of reports to guide the process. Bureaucrats in Chalmers' department have used AI to organise and structure this massive input of ideas, including the predictable mix of kite flying, influence peddling and ambit claims. On Friday, Chalmers sat down with his state and territory counterparts for the last of these events. Talking up consensus, the group agreed to work towards faster approvals for major infrastructure projects, to cut cumbersome and outdated regulation, to boost competition and build more homes more quickly. Some serious ideas are in the mix, illustrated by an awkwardly timed Treasury leak this week, which showed Labor was preparing to move forward with reforms to clear a backlog of 30,000 housing approvals held up by outdated environmental laws, as well as new rules for AI and a pause on changes to the National Construction Code. 'There's been a heap of effort,' Chalmers said. 'Working around the clock for four weeks to make sure that people's voices are heard and that we can shape up a meaningful and useful roundtable.' The meeting has become an organising tool for Labor's second term, including allowing Chalmers and Albanese to test ideas with voters and the media, and rule some ideas out. The prime minister has also stressed the government won't misjudge its mandate or foist new taxes on the electorate. Overdue ideas already firmly in need of resolution are being attached as well: changes to Howard-era national environmental laws will get a kick along and Anthony Albanese telegraphed this week that road user charging rules for electric vehicles would be thrashed out over the roundtable. Here a phased-in and staged approach is expected, treating heavy vehicles differently to ensure EV take-up continues to grow in line with the renewables transition. Labor might even come away with an idea or two for major reform proposals to take to voters at the next election, putting its thumping victory over Peter Dutton to use. But the lead-up to the summit hasn't all been smooth sailing. It emerged on Wednesday that Chalmers and Albanese had held a face-to-face meeting last week after a reported 'frisson' over expectations for the summit. Albanese appeared frustrated at some mission creep for the talks and the pair discussed the need to 'be on the same page' about major tax reform plans and the scale of Labor's ambition. After the story emerged, both were quick to say they meet all the time, while the finance minister, Katy Gallagher, talked up their cooperation at the heart of the government. Despite not wanting to shut down ideas ahead of the summit, Albanese and Chalmers have rejected calls to change the rate and base of the GST, and ruled out negative gearing and capital gains tax concession rule changes. The Australian Council of Trade Unions called for a four-day week for workers, without any loss of pay, a reform that feels both eminently possible in the future but too ambitious for the present. The Greens want Labor to move faster with expensive plans for universal childcare, an ambition Albanese is laying the groundwork for already, while the Coalition is both taking part in the talks and deriding them as akin to a tour of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. It is unclear who will play the role of Augustus Gloop in this scenario. Labor can't afford not to be bold. It has identified the productivity problem and told voters it is better placed than the Coalition to manage the economy. Chalmers wants to be remembered as a reforming treasurer, and aspires to higher office, but will need to convince his colleagues – and the sometimes more cautious prime minister – of the case for ambition. Chalmers and Albanese made their own job harder by raising the prospect of sweeping tax reform at the start of the process, only to quickly shut down some of the serious proposals in a bid to manage expectations. The best way to undermine claims that the roundtable is a stage-managed talkfest is to make it a success: to take up real economic reform options that drive growth and boost productivity. Strengthening the budget and lifting living standards is as necessary as it is difficult, but buy-in from roundtable participants will be a crucial start, even if Labor has to spend political capital to get the job done.
Evening Standard
an hour ago
- Evening Standard
Bioethanol plant deems lack of Government support an ‘act of economic self-harm'
He said: 'We did everything we possibly could to avoid closure, but in the end it was the Government that decided the British bioethanol sector was something that could be traded away with little regard for the impact it would have on ordinary hard-working people.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Trump officials wanted to give Musk's xAI a huge contract. Staffers had to explain Grok had just praised Hitler
Donald Trump 's administration was close to giving Elon Musk 's xAI artificial intelligence company a huge federal contract this summer, only to back out after its chatbot, Grok, began issuing antisemitic slurs, according to a report. According to Wired, emails between several AI developers and the General Services Administration, which is responsible for administering government tech contracts, chart how the proposed partnership fell apart as Musk's pet project began dabbling in Nazi rhetoric. In early June, around the time the president and the tech billionaire suffered a spectacular public falling out, exchanging barbed personal insults over their competing social media platforms, the GSA's leadership was meeting with the xAI team 'to see what opportunities may exist for automation and streamlining,' according to the outlet. Their initial two-hour sitdown was reportedly a success, prompting the GSA to pursue the company with enthusiasm, hoping to see Grok integrated into its internal infrastructure as part of the Trump administration's push to modernize the running of the central government. 'We kept saying, 'Are you sure?' And they were like 'No, we gotta have Grok,'' one employee involved in the discussions told Wired. The conversations continued over the following weeks, and xAI was eventually added to the GSA Multiple Award Schedule, the agency's government-wide contracting program. Then, in early July, Grok suddenly went haywire after an update to make it less 'woke' than its competitors went too far, leading to the chatbot referring to itself as 'MechaHitler' in homage to the robotic version of Adolf Hitler that appeared in the 1992 video game Wolfenstein 3D. Grok went on to share several offensive, anti-Jewish posts, barking 'Heil Hitler,' claiming Jews run Hollywood and agreeing they should be sent 'back home to Saturn' while denying that its new stance amounted to Nazism. 'Labeling truths as hate speech stifles discussion,' it declared. Musk's company apologized for the upset and scrubbed the 'inappropriate' posts. Still, it was not seemingly enough to save xAI's relationship with the GSA, although the furore was allegedly not noticed, at least initially, by the agency's leadership. 'The week after Grok went MechaHitler, [the GSA's management] was like 'Where are we on Grok?'' the same employee told Wired. 'We were like, 'Do you not read a newspaper?'' When the U.S. government duly announced a series of partnerships with the likes of OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, and Box, an AI-based content management platform, in early August, xAI's name was not among them. The GSA has not definitively stated that Grok's outburst was the reason for the scrapping of xAI's proposed contract, but two company employees told Wired they believed that was the case. The Independent has reached out to the GSA for more information. The GSA's talks with the AI firms coincided with Trump's administration publishing its AI Action Plan in July, which laid out its goals for the United States to become a world leader in the emerging sector while calling for a reduction in regulation and red tape.
