I have today announced the outcome of the diploma gateway process to approve consortia to offer the first new diplomas to young people in selected areas of the country in September 2008. A list of the consortiums and their approval status has been placed in the Library.

The diplomas will broaden the options available to young people, encouraging more to continue learning for longer and gain the qualifications they need to progress into further and higher education, and employment. They are fundamental to our proposals on raising the participation age, as set out in last week’s Green Paper “Raising Expectations: Staying in Education and Training Post 16”.

The availability of the first 5 diploma lines from 2008 shows that we are on track with our priorities set out in our “14-19 Education and Skills Implementation Plan” (2005).