Daily roundup: Boost for Birmingham's unemployed, A-level reform, and EBacc

Young unemployed people in Birmingham are to benefit from a £15m scheme to help them find work and training. The announcement follows findings from the Birmingham Commission on Youth Unemployment, which showed 15,000 young people are out of work in the city, among which about 3,000 have been on Jobseeker's Allowance for more than a year. Funded by Birmingham City Council, the National Apprenticeship Service, Birmingham Voluntary Service Council and the Big Lottery, the money will be used to encourage firms to hire 1,000 under-25s. The announcement comes as official statistics show youth unemployment has risen slightly to 957,000.

A-level exams will be taken after two years of study from autumn 2015, the Education Secretary has confirmed, while AS levels will be turned into a separate qualification. The BBC reports that Michael Gove told the exam regulator Ofqual that A-levels in their current form do not provide the solid foundation needed by students. “The modular nature of the qualification and repeated assessment windows have contributed to many students not developing deep understanding or the necessary skills to make connections between topics,” he said.

The English Baccalaureate (EBacc) has led to a reduction in the number of subject choices offered to young people, and caused job cuts among non-EBacc specialist teachers, according to research. The survey of more than 2,500 teachers by teachers’ union NASUWT also found 42 per cent of teachers said the EBacc had created negative perceptions of their school’s effectiveness among parents, pupils and the community. A letter signed by 100 organisations has meanwhile been delivered to Number 10. It calls on the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister to rethink the review of secondary school exams.

Further government budget cuts are expected to be announced after figures showed a leap in public sector borrowing, the Independent reports. The Chancellor told cabinet ministers yesterday they would have to do “more for less” after data shows the government borrowed £15.4bn last month – £500m more than the same month the previous year. The paper reports that education spending would continue to be protected, but the Department for Education would still be expected to find administrative savings.

Work discovery programmes, in which primary school children visit work places and hear talks from employers, are among Labour’s proposals to better prepare young people for employment. Shadow education secretary Stephen Twigg also suggested schools should organise apprenticeship taster days. “Successive governments have not done enough to help the 50 per cent of young people who don’t go to university,” said Twigg. “We would now expand our reformist zeal to the skills agenda – driving up the standards of vocational and technical courses by getting employers to accredit them.”

Children from disadvantaged backgrounds can be identified by their weight, the public health minister has claimed. Anna Soubry suggested obesity among children was the result of parents feeding them cheaper, unhealthier food, and that parents had a “primary responsibility” to make sure their children are properly fed. The Telegraph reports the minister’s comments, which were made at a conference. “When I go to my constituency, in fact when I walk around, you can almost now tell somebody’s background by their weight,” said Soubry. “Obviously, not everybody who is overweight comes from deprived backgrounds but that’s where the propensity lies.”