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Blunkett urges learning support
Minority communities need more lifelong-learning support if they are to integrate fully and enjoy the benefits of social mobility, former Home Secretary David Blunkett will say today.
The Sheffield Brightside MP will call for more to be done to allow people to move from working to middle class, and address the problem of Britain's growing underclass.
Based on research he has conducted in Sheffield and Leeds, Mr Blunkett –who was Education and Employment Secretary, Home Secretary and Work and Pensions Secretary between 1997 and 2005 – calls for measures on social mobility in a pamphlet for the Progress pressure group.
He writes: "Minorities are more likely to be socially mobile that the white community. The exception to this is the first wave of immigrants who often have to take jobs below either their own or their parents' standing in their country of origin. Ethnic minorities are likely to have lower employment levels for reasons including discrimination, as well as cultural issues relating to the role of women."
Mr Blunkett cites evidence from the Afro-Caribbean community, where men between 18 and 25 remain disadvantaged whereas those aged 25 to 45 tend to do better through gaining qualifications later on as evidence that lifelong learning needs to be bolstered.
He also suggests that many eastern Europeans coming to Yorkshire bring with them a work ethic mirroring his own generation's social mobility drive in the 1960s.
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Weather for Yorkshire
Saturday 26 May 2012
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