Three quarters of apprenticeship vacancy adverts block applicants who have not already achieved a grade 4 pass in GCSE English and maths, research has found.
The Association of Employment and Learning Providers analysed 5,440 vacancies and discovered 72 per cent of ads required learners to have a minimum of grade 4/C – known as a standard pass, with a further 4 per cent requiring at least a grade 5 – known as a “strong pass”.
The remaining 24 per cent of adverts either had no specific maths and English requirement or accepted grade 3/D and below.
Ministers have now been urged to use the finding as a wake-up call to end functional skills exit requirements in apprenticeships.
Ben Rowland, AELP chief executive, said the “astonishing” figures show “well-intentioned rules designed to encourage further learning of English and maths are now having the opposite impact – those in most need of support are being blocked from the apprenticeship route because of requirements”.
The Department for Education confirmed it is reviewing English and maths requirements to “ensure they support learners while maintaining high standards”.
It comes against a backdrop of almost one million young people not in education, employment or training (NEET).
‘Stressful and often irrelevant’
Under current rules, apprentices must achieve level 1 English and maths functional skills qualifications if they are on a level 2 apprenticeship and did not pass the qualifications at GCSE. And, if a similar learner is on a level 3 or higher apprenticeship, they must achieve functional skills at level 2.
Training providers, employers and apprentices have long complained the rule is “almost universally viewed as a barrier to opportunity” within apprenticeships and a “major source of frustration” that contributes to high dropout rates, according to a report published today by AELP.
The group found just over half of the grade 4/C qualification requirements were advertised as “essential”, with the rest saying the grades were “desirable”.
And it concluded the data showed entry requirements for apprenticeships were being tightened to “avoid the stressful and often irrelevant functional skills qualifications that come with learners without English and maths”.
Rowland added: “Given the dire impact on operations, morale and learner mental health caused by functional skills qualifications as an exit requirement, it is not surprising that both employers and providers have responded by seeking to avoid it wherever possible.”
Remove the exit requirement
More than a quarter of young people left school without English and maths GCSE grade 4 last year.
Reformed functional skills qualifications launched in 2019 with revised content and assessment requirements. The aim was to give the qualifications greater credibility with employers.
Functional skills pass rates currently sit at around 75 per cent, down from 84 per cent before the pandemic and before the reformed qualifications were introduced.
No other qualification, such as A Levels and T Levels, have English and maths as an exit requirement. However, 16 to 18-year-old students without a pass in the subjects must work towards them as a condition of their place being funded.
The AELP said the DfE should “require and fund providers to deliver English and maths support to all learners who are not able to demonstrate the required level, including an assessment at the start and end of the apprenticeship to demonstrate progress – but not as an exit requirement for the apprenticeship”.
Apprenticeship standard trailblazer groups should also “consider English and maths requirements for apprenticeships on a standard-by-standard approach, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, allowing more contextualisation”. This would “ensure that delivery and assessment are more aligned to job roles and skills being tested are meaningful and appropriate to the learner”.
The DfE said: “We are committed to giving young people the skills they need to seize opportunity, no matter what their background is. That is at the heart of our plan for change which will put the economy on firm foundations for growth.
“That’s why we are reviewing the English and maths requirements for apprenticeships to ensure they support learners while maintaining high standards. High-quality apprenticeships are a vital pathway into skilled employment and we want them to be more widely available.”
The system needs an overhaul.
Why do we bother with a graded system for GCSEs. Why don’t we do a simple pass or fail? Anything less than a 4 is seen as a fail. Any grade 4 or higher is seen as a pass. Let’s not move the goal posts each year to mean that one year a child would get a 4, but in other years that same grade might mean a 2 or a 6. Adjusted to the calibre of the students in that year.
In the real world students aren’t competing for jobs against peers from their year group, they are competing against a range of age groups. So setting a grade to pass makes far more sense, and if the student fails to meet the pass grade they remain at school rather than passing them out to college or work.
Afterall If a student fails to get a pass either
– our education system failed to provide a suitable education based age, ability and SEN and it’s only right that is resolved
OR
– we are teaching irrelevant information to provide a person with a suitable education to be a part of the community. Is Algebra, Pythagoras theorem needed for everyday life or should it be taught in further maths?
Perhaps it’s a bit of both, but what I am confident in is that every child will be useful to our economy and therefore we need to invest in them at the start before they stop believing in themselves!
I am an Advanced Technical Trainer delivering Lebel 3 apprenticeships in Agricultural Engineering.
This apprenticeship requires a Level 4 GCSE Maths and English pass as a prerequisite. Many of the students accepted by the college, despite 11 years of prior schooling, do not have such a level at commencement, and have to complete additional training during their apprenticeship.
Even those with a level 4 pass find the academic parts of the apprenticeship difficult and the level of English used to produce written work is very poor.
The answer to this problem, or so the article suggests, is to ‘dumb down’ the apprenticeship. What a marvelous suggestion.
The potential employer has to set its own entrance examination, as many have, to determine their own standards.
I have experienced this method three times where both employer and employee found common ground and discipline.
I completed my GCSEs in the mid-90s. Since then, I’ve worked diligently, advancing into various management and coordinator roles. Despite these professional achievements, my GCSE results have remained unchanged. It’s crucial that we reconsider evaluating everyone based on the same English and Math standards.
Having struggled with English due to dyslexia, I achieved the best possible grade in Math for the paper I sat, although missing the SATs due to illness. This scenario hardly seems fair.
My employer, recognizing my daily contributions in Data Analytics, has offered me an apprenticeship in the field. However, to obtain this certification, I must meet the exit qualifications in English and Math. This adds a significant amount of work and time for something that seems mostly irrelevant.
It leaves me and my employer with concerns that we’re putting in all the effort to meet these exit conditions, which may not make much difference to the main course content.