Departmental Work Experience

To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many work placements his Department and its predecessors offered to (a) school pupils, (b) university students and (c) graduates in each of the last five years. (274491)

The information is as follows:

	School pupils	University students and graduates
2005	69	14
2006	78	27
2007¹	40	35
2008	55	32
¹ Department for Education and Skills up to 27 June 2007 and Department of Children, Schools and Families from 28 June 2007.

It is not possible to separate figures for university students and graduates.

The Department is currently in the process of planning its own work experience programme for 2009.

Volume 493: debated on Thursday 4 June 2009