More than 400 extra cadets will be trained in maritime roles every year thanks to a £15 million funding boost announced by Maritime Minister Nusrat Ghani today (2 February 2018).

The investment, which will double the support for young people to £30 million a year, will be offered through Support for Maritime Training (SMarT), enabling the annual intake of cadets to rise from 750 to 1,200.

Multinational shipping companies, including Carnival UK, BP, Shell, Maersk and Stena Line, have also pledged to create an extra 450 training positions on board ships.

These positions will give SMarT cadets the experience at sea that will help them gain internationally recognised qualifications, setting them in good stead for future careers both within and outside the sector.

This commitment comes shortly after the launch of the Year of Engineering, a campaign to show young people from all backgrounds the variety and opportunities an engineering career can bring.

Maritime Minister Nusrat Ghani said:

We are building the maritime workforce of tomorrow and I want to encourage more young people to consider an exciting and rewarding career at sea.

By doubling the funding for cadet training, we will help make sure that our engineers and captains of the future can access the right opportunities to reach their full potential.

It will also strengthen the UK maritime sector’s position as a world leader and ensure people have the skills they need to help the industry flourish after we leave the EU.

SMarT Plus Final

Shipping and ports are critical to supplying the UK’s daily needs, with around 95% of imports and exports coming by sea, including 40% of our food and at least a quarter of our energy.

By supporting young people wanting to get into maritime, we will boost a growing sector, ensuring that the UK remains the first port of call for shipping companies seeking highly skilled officers.

UK Chamber of Shipping Chief Executive Guy Platten said:

Nothing will prove that the UK is open for business quite like seeing more British seafarers arrive in the world’s ports. We already recruit people from all backgrounds and all corners of the country, and with this new investment we will be able to create thousands of new opportunities in the years ahead.

The taxpayer sees a £5 return on every £1 it invests in seafarer training, so this funding will see the economy and the workforce, as well as the industry better off.

Seafarers are highly skilled and well paid, and have the opportunity to build a successful long-term career. We know this funding will help us to unlock the talents of more young people, and it goes to show what can be achieved when government and industry work together.

The training places are open to anyone across the UK who has an interest in becoming a navigation officer, engineer or an electro-technical officer.

Places will be available at training colleges including Warsash Maritime Academy in Southampton, City of Glasgow College, Lairside Maritime Centre in Liverpool and the South Shields Marine School.

Emma Jordan, 27, is taking a foundation degree in marine engineering at Warsash Maritime Academy. She said:

I was a motorbike mechanic before but I discovered a more challenging role with BP Maritime Services. I’d really like to be a chief engineer and the guys on board are really good as they’re really interested in your training because if they do it right then you’re going to be useful.

The funding will increase annually over 7 years to fulfill demand for seafarer training.

The maritime industry has a crucial role to play in inspiring the next generation of engineers throughout 2018. The government’s Year of Engineering is being supported by organisations from across the industry, including the Royal Navy, UK Nest, Seafarers UK, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, Land Rover BAR and Associated British Ports.

At a time when half the world’s children leave primary school unable to read or write, International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt will announce today (Friday 2 February) that the UK is stepping up its work to tackle this “terrible waste of potential” as she attends a global education conference jointly hosted by France’s President Macron and Senegal’s President Sall.

Over the next decade a billion more young people will enter the job market across the world – but 387 million children globally are set to leave school without the basic skills needed to get on in life because teachers aren’t well-prepared for their roles, and struggle to access the support or resources they need.

In Dakar, Ms Mordaunt will announce the UK’s commitment to the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) – and will set out how it is conditional on countries’ governments reforming their own education systems.

By encouraging radical improvements to education systems, the UK is supporting young people to get good jobs, and contribute to the future stability and prosperity of developing countries, so they can become our partners of the future. It’s also reducing the risk young people are forced to turn to crime or to search for a better life outside their own country – which directly impacts the UK.

The UK’s support for GPE over the next three years will work mostly across Sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia to:

• keep 880,000 children in school each year for three years – over half of whom will be in fragile or conflict affected states;
• train 170,000 teachers;
• build 2400 new classrooms; and
• distribute more than 20 million new textbooks.

This follows the UK-France Summit last month, when Prime Minister Theresa May and President Macron named 2018 the Global Year of Learning. This year-long partnership will see the UK and France working together, calling on donor countries and partners to step up to tackle the ‘global learning crisis’.

International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt said:

It’s a terrible waste of potential that half the world’s children leave primary school unable to read or write because the quality of teaching is so poor.

We need an education revolution, but to succeed in tackling this global learning crisis, we will not just need to be open-hearted – we need to be hard-headed too.

The UK will lead the way by supporting countries’ governments to fundamentally overhaul their education systems to make sure they can ultimately step up and provide a good education for their own people.

All children deserve a decent education to make the most of their talents and to help lift themselves and their countries out of poverty – building a more prosperous and more stable future for us all.

Ms Mordaunt will say that the UK is focused on helping developing countries drive up standards in their education systems and ultimately take responsibility for investing in their own people, rather than depend on aid.

Although huge progress has been made in recent years improving access to education with 89% of children now in school, many teachers aren’t properly equipped to teach basic knowledge and vital skills.

UK aid has led the way, supporting 11.3 million of the world’s poorest children in primary and lower-secondary school between 2011 and 2015.

Under the Secretary of State’s new commitment to education, the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) is:

• working in partnership with countries to build inclusive education systems that will get children learning, so that governments can ultimately be responsible for providing education for their own people;
• sharing its world-class expertise and developing new technologies like mobile registration to make sure teachers are properly trained and motivated to provide a quality education to their students; and
• bringing education to the hardest-to-reach children, so that marginalised girls, those with disabilities and children affected by conflict are not left behind.

As set out by Prime Minister Theresa May and President Macron at the UK-France Summit, the UK is increasing its partnership with the French tackling serious threats and maximising opportunities in the Sahel region of Africa.

During her visit the Secretary of State will visit a school and a family planning clinic in Dakar, to see how the UK is helping Senegal serve its rapidly growing population, and stimulate economic growth which is creating jobs and future prosperity across the country.

Notes to Editors

• The International Development Secretary will today pledge £225 million to the Global Partnership for Education. This represents an almost 50% increase compared to our current annual contribution and maintains the UK’s position as the one of the largest country donors to the fund. As previously, we will cap our final contribution at 15% of the total replenishment amount.
• One third of DFID’s pledge will be conditional on GPE reorganising to focus on key improvements – such as making sure education systems are making better plans for teaching provision, improving methods for testing students’ progress, and making more grants conditional on countries raising teaching standards.
• As DFID’s multilateral reform agenda sets out, it is crucial that organisations such as GPE are accountable for achieving a real impact in the countries where they work.
• The Secretary of State’s new commitment to tackling the global learning crisis is set out in DFID’s 2018 Education policy, published today (Friday, 2 February) on gov.uk .
• Teaching quality is the single biggest factor in getting children learning – but in many African countries, the majority of primary teachers do not have the minimum levels of literacy or the teaching skills they need to teach their classes.
• As a result, globally, 56% (387 million) of children are not on track to read well or do basic maths by the end of primary school. In low income countries, almost 90 percent of children will not learn even basic skills in literacy and numeracy.
• 69 million teachers will need to be recruited by 2030 – that’s more than the current entire population of the UK. It’s vital to make sure these teachers are properly trained and equipped to provide a quality education.
• Huge inequalities persist in global education – 63 million girls aren’t in school, children with disabilities struggle to access any useful education, and children affected by conflict and crises all too often miss vital schooling.
• DFID is acknowledged as a global leader on education. Between 2012–2015, the UK spent an annual average of £966 million per year on education. Between 2015-2017 DFID supported 7.1 million children to gain a decent education. This included at least 3.3 million girls.

Example

Revolutionising Ghana’s education system

The Government of Ghana is working with GPE and DFID to drive up quality of education in the poorest rural communities, including improving teacher quality and attendance. Over the past two decades, Ghana has seen dramatic increases in school enrolment and in the quality of basic education as well as in getting more children into school.

Thanks to extra teacher training through T-TEL (Transforming Teacher Education and Learning), Irene has massively improved her method of teaching, delivers engaging lessons and is an inspiration to her students. She also makes sure girls and boys participate equally in all her lessons. She’s now sharing these methods with other teachers at her school and carries out regular evaluation and training.

Because of improvements in Ghana’s education system, Ruhainatu is getting the quality education she needs to achieve her ambition of being a nurse, so that she can return to help her community which was once devastated by cholera.

• Irene’s story (T-TEL): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22At-HUFx1E
• Ruhainatu’s story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBA3X7NQDNM&list=PLANYXGuWdpB9DXouinft6jsmxr_wqvghe&index=13
• GPE in Ghana: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X39v_sFNETo
• GPE Images: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gpforeducation/sets/72157633304867054

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The Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson and his US counterpart, Jim Mattis, have been discussing how to tackle the increasing threats faced by both allies. Crown copyright.

Artist’s impression of an ARTES programme mission. Credit: ESA.

Good afternoon everybody, good afternoon ladies and gentlemen.

It’s one of my themes at the moment that we don’t do enough to celebrate good news and today particularly is a moment for celebration. Because China has struck a blow against elephant poachers by closing down its domestic ivory market, which is currently the largest in the world.

And provided that ban is fully enforced, and provided the ivory trade isn’t allowed simply to relocate to Vietnam or Laos or Burma or indeed anywhere else – and I’m afraid there are warning signs that that is already happening – then China’s enlightened and far-sighted decision will give humanity a better chance of halting and eventually reversing the tragic decline of the African elephant.

And this has really come in the nick of time. I first went to Africa 40 years ago as a child, and I remember seeing great herds in the Serengeti and the Maasai Mara and I was even trapped in a latrine I seem to remember for about an hour.

Closing ivory markets

Anyway, more than 2 thirds of those animals are now gone. Africa is down to 415,000, even at the most generous count, and in the last 12 years the pace of slaughter has accelerated. We have lost 110,000 since 2006, including half of all the elephants in East Africa; 2 thirds in Tanzania.

It would be absolutely unconscionable to sit back and watch, as though we were powerless or indifferent to the disappearance of charismatic megafauna in Africa.

If we do nothing, there really is a risk that our grandchildren will grow up in a world without wild elephants and if that calamity were to come about, they will look at these photographs of giant herds, and they will point accusing fingers at all of us and ask you and me – why we were so careless and neglectful as to let this happen. And why we failed to save the African elephant from extirpation?

And it is a terrible fact that our planet is now enduring what may be the sixth mass extinction of species. Unlike previous extinctions – –homo sapiens were not around for the previous 5, so we can’t take the blame for those – but this particular one.

In the last century, 500 species have vanished from the earth, and if nature was allowed to take its course – then the normal rate of extinctions over a hundred years would be only 2 species.

So there is nothing inevitable, nothing biologically preprogrammed, about the tragedy taking place around us. On the contrary, we can protect our planet from being despoiled, and we can rescue wildlife from destruction. The only question is whether we have the collective will?

And I believe that today is a manifestation of that will.

I think it is great that the UK and China are united in our perspective on this policy – and by the way, I think we’re more forward looking and ambitious in our ban than the European Union itself, about which I make no complaint except they have a President called Tusk so you would have thought they would be sympathetic on this ban – the UK and China together are taking this forward.

And we in London, in October, we will be co-hosting with Defra, with other departments, an international conference on combating illegal wildlife trade which threatens the survival of many, many endangered species; pangolins, rhinos, tigers, and many more.

And whilst I’m on the subject of ivory, don’t forget, as we work to save the elephant, the threat then moves across to the hippo, and the narwhal, and other bearers of ivory in their jaws.

And so I am very glad to say that earlier today also that the Hong Kong Legislative Council voted to end the Territory’s ivory trade by 2021, with no compensation for dealers.

I think we should all be very encouraged from China’s decision not only because of the practical impact we hope it will have, but because it demonstrates the birth of a new global consensus – based on the collective will of the United Nations – that buying or selling ivory is no longer acceptable anywhere and human beings, wherever we may live, share the same obligation to do what we must to protect the magnificent animals that are humanity’s joint inheritance.

Thank you.