Judging an apprentice’s skill and knowledge through an end-point assessment is an approach fraught with issues, explains Simon Reddy.

There has been much talk about quality in apprenticeships and the urgent need to improve training and assessment in vocational qualifications.

To address these quality issues, end-tests are being introduced on the back of the Richard Review, which was scathing in its appraisal of the existing ‘tick box’ approaches.

Trailblazer employer groups have been charged with drawing up standards and assessment plans for the end-tests.

The move towards end-testing means an increased likelihood of ‘teaching to test’

However, in my opinion, this move towards end-testing means an increased likelihood of ‘teaching to test,’ which, in addition to the Richard Review’s problematic approach to knowledge transfer, stands to undermine rather than increase quality in the training process.

One major weakness of the Richard Review is that it is not based on empirical evidence. Indeed, the author used the driving test to substantiate the benefits of end-testing.

Doug Richard’s argument was that it does not matter whether a person has taught themselves to drive, whether they have completed an intensive course or whether they have been taking driving lessons for five years — all that matters is that they can drive.

“And it is this which makes passing a driving test a transferable qualification, trusted and recognised. The same is true for apprenticeships,” he said.

While the driving test may present a logical example of a transferable qualification, it is a mistake to think “the same is true for apprenticeships”.

This is particularly true when the bulk of apprenticeship assessments are carried out in simulated college environments.

In his report, Mr Richard used terms like “real world context” and “real world based”, seemingly trying to avoid any mention of assessments taking place in the reality of the workplace. Why? Because end-tests are most likely to be delivered in purpose-made assessment centres.

The empirical findings in my study of full-time courses and apprenticeships in plumbing revealed the complexities associated with knowledge transfer [see feweek.co.uk for link to study and findings].

The study highlighted the problems of low-fidelity assessment simulations, which neither replicated the reality of the workplace nor created the conditions in which students could be adequately supported in their learning and in transferring that knowledge and skill over to the work context.

The research also revealed the nature of the ‘unforeseen’ in the workplace, which incidentally included students having to deal with routine problems that could not be replicated in college simulations.

For example, college simulations consisted of dry systems with new pipes and fittings, while in the workplace, apprentices were having to deal with pressurised plumbing, connected to electrical and fuel systems that were often corroded.

Furthermore, the study found a total lack of synchrony in the plumbing curriculum between college and work, so the full-time students and some of the apprentices did not often have the opportunity to embody their knowledge in practical activities.

It is clear Mr Richard took a simplistic approach to knowledge transfer and did not consider the variations in performance requirements faced by apprentices at work in comparison with their experience of poorly simulated assessments in college.

Perhaps the most telling statement in his report was the assertion that “someone already doing the job for a significant period of time, should, by definition, already be at the standard required to do the job”.

This is a major contradiction to his position on end-tests. The apprentices in my study were taking up to four years to qualify, so it is likely they were up to the required standard without the need to demonstrate their competence through an end-test.

These end-tests therefore only really serve to create a proxy for skill in a qualification for unapprenticed students on full-time college courses, and this does not do justice to the skills or depth and breadth of knowledge learned by apprentices at work. This inequality in training and assessment leads to Trailblazer double standards and serves to undermine quality in the process and outcomes of apprenticeships.

Stewart Segal hits back at Ofsted’s recent report that was critical of apprenticeships.

After all the damaging headlines that resulted from the Ofsted report, we can now consider how we take forward some of the issues set out in the report. AELP and providers have been committed to raising the quality of apprenticeships well before Ofsted started writing reports on the issues.

In fact, the report confirmed a number of issues which AELP has been raising for some time. These include: schools and colleges are not promoting apprenticeships sufficiently to young people and their parents; career guidance needs to be improved; and too few young people, particularly those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities, become apprentices.

Other issues are that traineeships provide a useful step to apprenticeships, but are not yet meeting their potential; a crucial factor in delivering quality is ‘how well the provider and employer worked together to ensure that this training was well coordinated’; the advantages of being in training while at work were clear to all the apprentices; and, employers, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, benefited from the support of providers while setting up and managing the apprenticeship.

Ofsted chose to ‘blame’ employers, providers and schools but does not mention the government or its own role in driving improvements especially in the careers advice in schools

These are all quotes from the report and show that many of the recommendations we have made to drive the quantity and quality of apprenticeships have been reinforced by the Ofsted report.

However, we do not agree with some of the analysis and conclusions in it. There is certainly some variable quality of provision across the programme.

However, suggesting that the growth of the number of starts in the service sector is anything other than a response to real employer demand and a reflection of the current labour market is a mistake.

Providers have responded to the new labour market and are working with many employers that are new to apprenticeships. It takes time to build the commitment to training especially when the funding levels for these programmes are so low when compared to the traditional sectors.

Clearly, any programmes that are only developing skills and knowledge for the current job should not be funded but all apprenticeship frameworks, including cleaning and sandwich-making, are broad programmes that include a range of tasks as well as personal skills, employment issues and English and maths. No one would defend programmes that do not cover the full range of tasks and the other important employment skills.

Although it is valid to highlight poor provision, the report should have provided evidence from other surveys that employers and apprentices are happy with the apprenticeship programmes.

In fact Ofsted’s own survey in 2012 said that ’89 per cent of the 500 respondents to the online survey agreed that their apprenticeship lived up to their expectations and they would recommend it as a good way of gaining qualifications’.

We do not believe the growth of apprenticeships in the service sectors has damaged the perception of the programme. In fact, the tactics of releasing a press release the week before the full report could be seen to be just as damaging.

Ofsted chose to ‘blame’ employers, providers and schools but does not mention the government or its own role in driving improvements especially in the careers advice in schools.

Just a week after Ofsted said that the apprenticeship programme was not reflecting the skills needs of the economy, the latest figures on the UK economy show that the construction sector reduced by 2.2 per cent and the engineering sector by 0.3 per cent in the third quarter of the year.

The service sector at the same time grew by 0.7 per cent and now accounts for almost 80 per cent of the UK economy.

Of course we would like to have seen growth in all sectors, but where would we be without the service sectors? We have to support manufacturing, but it should not be at the cost of downplaying the important role of the service sector in keeping the economy moving.

What we need to do now is to work together as a sector, including Ofsted, to address the issues in the report.

We have written to Ofsted to take up the challenge to create even more, higher quality apprenticeship opportunities across the whole of the economy.

Employers are the ultimate test of whether Sir Michael Wilshaw’s criticisms of apprenticeships were justified — and Pippa Morgan thinks the business view might not quite align with the Ofsted chief inspector’s.

Sir Michael Wilshaw chose the CBI’s West Midlands Education and Skills Conference to launch an Ofsted report on the state of apprenticeships last month — hitting the headlines with an uncompromising message to all employers, school and FE providers.

We should not risk the impression that level two training investment lacks value

Beneath the headlines, there is much in the report, entitled Apprenticeships: developing skills for future prosperity, that business agrees with — not least about the value of quality apprenticeships as a route to the higher level skills that business and the economy need. There are also some areas of dispute.

Opening up routes to higher skills to more young people is an essential element in addressing the UK’s skills challenge. Being on such an apprenticeship should indeed be a ‘badge of honour’, as Sir Michael said. Only then will young people get a genuine choice, and businesses get the confidence that the current and future workforce is able to help them grow.

Government ambition to raise apprentice numbers is a real positive but sheer volume alone is not going to solve our skills challenge. For the ambitions — of government, business, and young people — to be realised, these apprenticeships must be relevant to the needs of employers while providing an opportunity for individuals to get a genuine foothold on the career ladder.

The latest data on apprenticeship starts shows there is still work to be done — with less than 4 per cent of starts at higher levels (19,300 out of 492,700). In time, this needs to grow if apprenticeships are to provide the advanced, technician-level skills needed in the sectors that are crucial to rebalancing the economy.

It’s important to acknowledge however, that there is a distinction to be made between the level of an apprenticeship and the quality of that apprenticeship. ‘Lower level’ does not necessarily mean lower quality — and vice versa. We should not risk the impression that level two training investment lacks value.

Businesses would dispute that — an apprentice ‘start’ should be exactly that — the first step on a clear route to progression.

Take Whitbread as an example of this. A third of their level two apprentices move into management roles within two years of starting their apprenticeship — for them an apprenticeship is the stepping stone into a career.

The introduction of an apprenticeship levy risks achieving quantity to the detriment of quality. It also marks an unprecedented shift in skills and skills-funding policy. Business has been clear on the risks, as well as what is needed to mitigate these; an independent, employer-led body should set and maintain high standards for apprenticeships.

Giving employers control over their levy funds and allowing them to develop high-quality apprenticeships that work for their business is the best route to facing up to growing skills gaps. This is a business critical issue — across all sectors recruiting suitably skilled candidates is a source of growing anxiety among businesses.

Combined with real employer ownership and quality assurance, we need a transformation in the quality of careers provision in schools and colleges — so that vocational options are able to achieve ‘parity of esteem’ with more traditional academic routes. Business involvement with FE providers is essential in providing a real-life component to training, ensuring advice and information are inspiring and grounded in the realities of the evolving labour market. This is essential as young people themselves report the most important influences on their career choice by a large margin are talking to people in an industry and work experience/internships.

If the government is to achieve its ambitious target of 3m new apprenticeship starts by the end of the current Parliament, vocational institutions will certainly be involved in making this a reality. Colleges currently play an invaluable role in delivering apprenticeship programmes, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

To successfully deliver relevant, quality apprenticeships that respond to the skills needs of businesses, we need to ensure that genuine employer ownership is achieved –because as Sir Michael said, “good intentions are not enough”.

The prospect, not to mention the potential cost, of end assessments in Trailblazer apprenticeships has proven a cause for concern for employers and providers. Richard Guy attempts to address these concerns.

One of the biggest changes in the apprenticeship reforms is the introduction of independent end assessment for all apprenticeships. It’s clear from recent news that there is confusion surrounding how this will work, with warnings coming from both the Confederation of British Industry and the Association of Employment and Learning Providers around the additional costs of independent assessment.

What these warnings don’t make clear is that far from being an additional financial burden to employers, end assessment is in fact a new way of assuring quality in the system that replaces the existing models of continuous assessment that are no longer fit for purpose.

Existing models of continuous assessment are no longer fit for purpose

In Making Apprenticeships Work, published jointly by City & Guilds and our Industry Skills Board (ISB) we look at the importance of end assessment in apprenticeships and recommend that the end assessment standard should reflect full productivity, mastery and autonomy in an apprenticeship. This allows for a holistic view of the apprentices’ skill level in a particular area as well as general workplace skills they have developed during the apprenticeship.

The apprenticeship reforms have given each Trailblazer group responsibility for developing an occupation-specific assessment plan which will set out the skills, knowledge and behaviours required together with the assessment methods to be used. These will range from workplace observation through to projects both in and out of the workplace.

It’s important to recognise the role that continuous assessment will still play in an apprenticeship. Before the end assessment takes place the apprentice has to be signed off as ready by his or her employer — it is only through continuous assessment that the employer will be able to gain a realistic view of the apprentice’s readiness. This type of ongoing progress tracking is likely to be carried out by the employer with the support of their provider, rather than by the provider as currently.

A point of confusion has been around the costs of end assessment. It’s neither possible nor helpful to look at end assessment as a percentage of the overall apprenticeship cost. Each assessment plan will be individually costed based on the specific assessment tools and methods needed and these will be fixed regardless of the cost of the overall apprenticeship. The cost estimates by Trailblazer groups which we have knowledge of range from £500 to £1,500 depending on the methods determined by the group. This may well reduce once actual occupations are priced and we have not priced any yet.

The cost of end assessment will represent a small proportion of the total costs of most apprenticeships and whatever the cost, it will always be included in the allocation to a funding band.

An important and common element of all costings is the time taken by the independent assessor in assessment activity. In Making Apprenticeships Work we highlighted the importance of the independent assessor role. The person should have a status similar to that of an Ofsted inspector albeit with a different set of skills including very strong industry knowledge.

Independent end assessment is a big change in the system and employers are understandably nervous about starting apprentices until they have seen what the end assessment looks like. Each apprenticeship standard is published on the gov.uk website as “ready for delivery” once the assessment plan is approved and a funding band is allocated. However this does not mean that the development work on assessment instruments has been completed and this can take some time for Registered Assessment Organisations (RAOs) to carry out. City & Guilds will advise employers on progress, to help them take on apprentices as quickly as possible.

As the reforms continue, it’s vital we learn lessons from the past to create an end assessment for every apprenticeship that measures the quality of the programme and assesses the individual apprentices in a valid and reliable way. This is how the value of the reforms will be realised and will require collaboration between employers, providers and RAOs to ensure we have high quality and cost effective solutions in place.