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The Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, Fiona Hyslop, visited two projects in Glasgow yesterday which are helping to improve the employment and life opportunities of young people in their area.

Ms Hyslop will visit Action for Children's Youthbuild Project which helps unemployed young people aged 16 to 24 to access employment and training in the construction industry. The Cabinet Secretary will meet young people and staff at the project and visit a building site where project participants are on placements.

In the afternoon, Ms Hyslop will visit the South West Arts and Music Project (SWAMP) - a Get Ready for Work scheme which helps young people in need of More Choices, More Chances, to get training in digital technology, music and the arts. This includes access to a state of the art recording studio, internet radio station, and video production/editing to help them into work or further training.

Hs Hyslop said:

"Given the current economic situation, it is more important than ever that young people who may be at risk of leaving school and falling into unemployment are able to access the right training and skills they need to get into work, stay in work and contribute to this country's economic recovery when the time comes.

"We are taking action on that through our More Choices, More Chances strategy and through ScotAction, our skills support package for leading Scotland out of recession.

"Both Youthbuild and the South West Arts and Music Project are supporting those efforts by giving vulnerable young people in their area the opportunity to develop a range of transferrable skills in the construction and the creative industries to help them progress into further learning, education or employment and improve their life chances."

Damien Yeates, Chief Executive of Skills Development Scotland, added:

"Using arts and music to enable young people to discover and develop skills that will help them in the workplace allows initiatives such as the South West Arts and Music Project to achieve real results as part of the Get Ready for Work programme.

"By engaging with young people in this way, we're seeing real success for these projects with 60 per cent of young Scots involved in Get Ready for Work moving towards positive outcomes. It's fantastic to meet the real people behind these statistics - they're a true inspiration and I'm delighted that the Cabinet Secretary has had a chance to meet with some of them here today."

ScotAction is the Scottish Government's skills support package for leading Scotland out of the recession and on to economic growth. It is an integrated package combining new and revitalised measures to offer skills help for training for work, training in work and training from work to work.

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