Since its inception in 2017 end-point assessment has helped reengineer and strengthen the apprenticeship brand.
The employers and providers that work alongside TQUK and SIAS strongly agree that end-point assessment organisations (EPAOs) have introduced critical independence, credibility and rigour.
Employers have welcomed this confirmation of occupational competency, and we see this acutely in our work supporting critical sectors like care services and early years development and highly technical and hazardous STEM environments.
Deep dive needed
However, almost eight years on and with the market continuing to mature, it’s time to take stock – not just of EPA, but the entire apprenticeship programme! A deep dive reflection will allow the industry to acknowledge what’s worked well, learn from challenges overcome, and explore those that still need resolving. We have a highly successful foundation – now’s the time to evolve it!
DfE’s new principles-based approach represents an opportunity to do that. At its core, the model can help increase flexibility, diminish complexity and promote proportionate assessments and costs. These are goals the entire sector can get behind. If delivered correctly, it can enable assessment plan development that makes sense for individual occupations.
But to provide credibility for any truly fit-for-purpose apprenticeship offer, there must also be a non-negotiable commitment to independence, rigour and quality, and a collaborative and measured process that avoids destabilising the sector and creating long-lasting damage.
The change shouldn’t be embraced without question. There are already signs that the rush to reform is coming at the cost of careful consideration, felt most clearly in the announcements themselves. Communications lacked context, detail and clarity, allowing snippets to become headlines and speculation to become an unfavoured reality.
Whilst there is a desire to delve into questions about practical application, we need to go back a step and ask again: what’s the extent of the problem and what does success look like?
Questions needing answers
If we break this down and consider that cost, complexity, consistency, capacity and completion are key drivers we’d arrive at questions such as:
How do we reduce costs, rather than simply moving cost around the system or worse increasing costs?
How do we fully immerse EPAO expertise in assessment design, with assessment plans driving affordability and increasing deliverability rather than restrictive policy-led assessment methods?
How do we make best use of assessment evidence, including that generated on-programme, to aid access to timely assessment that sufficiently tests competency whilst maintaining independent sign-off of occupational readiness?
How do we find best value through flexibilities and better use of technology to creatively explore competency assessment?
How do we achieve our goals at a supportive pace without creating the chaos and distraction that goes hand-in-hand with poorly-considered timeframes?
How do we ensure the drivers for change are centred around sustainability and quality, and not just short-term goals to drive up completion rates?
Sector-by-sector approach
Transparency about intended outcomes can help answer these questions, but there must also be genuine consultation involving all stakeholders and the provision of sufficient collaboration time to create a sustainable model that’s replicable across the 700-plus standards in existence – and future standards.
This should begin with stakeholders selecting and piloting the reforms on a small group of hand-picked standards. Doing so would help produce worked examples that could help dispel myths, combat fear and show clearly how high-level principles could work in practice – and how some principles won’t fit all standards.
Indeed, we’d welcome a sector-by-sector approach based on agreed priority factors and underpinned by a clear road map that minimises disruption by assessing impact to apprentices, employers, providers and EPAOs, whilst being considerate of wider reform.
Ultimately, this collaborative approach would provide a proof of concept to inform a clearer principles-driven framework that offers flexibility, but also the much-needed guardrails to protect independence, rigour and quality, and truly achievable success measures.
This is a major moment for apprenticeships and represents the best-ever opportunity for EPAOs to bring their expertise together to create meaningful change. Let’s work together to provide the space for innovation and opportunity for return on investment that these reforms are designed to achieve.
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