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.

The challenges facing the FE and skills sector are not just being experienced by providers — awarding organisations (AOs) have also got to ensure their offer is in line with reforms, explains Gemma Gathercole.

The old saying goes that with great power comes great responsibility. The education and skills system holds great power to transform lives, to teach, to learn and to support the development of skills that leads to greater success for the individual and the economy as a whole. But if we look at our education and skills system at the moment there is another great we must consider, challenge.

Providers should be looking for qualifications that support their activity but that give enough flexibility to respond to local needs

From stories, headlines and discussions about the skills shortage, to the productivity crisis and to criticisms of programmes that do not lead young people into sustained employment, we face a great challenge.

In her seminal review of vocational education, Professor Lady Alison Wolf wrote about the importance of good quality vocational programmes, but she also challenged us: “Alongside the many young people for whom vocational education offers a successful pathway into employment or higher education, there are hundreds of thousands for whom it does not.”

From that report stems a reform programme, an agenda that has been set for vocational qualifications in order for them to receive recognition in the performance tables. This year sees the first culmination of that reform for level three qualifications.

As AOs, we had an opportunity to tinker around the edges to reform our qualifications so they would meet the new rules. But with challenge comes opportunity and we chose opportunity.

For teaching from September 2016, FE colleges will have new ranges of qualifications to choose from. At OCR, we have launched our new range of Cambridge Technicals qualifications. We have not just tinkered around the edges. The choices that face providers for teaching in September are ones that provide an opportunity for you to review your provision and ensure that you are providing courses that meet the needs of young people and also meet the expectations of higher education and employers.

A key issue presented to us by both higher education providers and employers was size. Yes, in this instance, size does matter.

Our new qualifications are available in four sizes, the maximum guided-learning hours (GLH) of the new technicals is 720. Why? Existing ‘blockbuster’ 1080 GLH qualifications can steer 16-year-olds to specialise too early, to not develop the breadth of skills they need for their next step in learning or work and, more critically, limit future options.

Our research told us that students progressing to higher education with a single subject blockbuster qualification often lack some of the basic self-management, extended writing and study skills that are required in higher education. So keeping the focus on smaller qualifications that can be combined in a study programme with other complementary provision is a crucial element of our design.

Both AOs and providers are being challenged to have greater links with employers, whether through employer-led apprenticeships or effective employer engagement. This is a challenge we face together.

Providers should be looking for qualifications that support their activity but that give enough flexibility to respond to local needs.

We see employer collaboration as more than just shaping the content. It has extended to resource development and support through the lifetime of these qualifications.

With much talk of skills gaps, identifying and hitting the right target is key. AOs need to reach out to others to get this right in
our vocational qualifications now more than ever and in doing so we can support your reforms too.

As recently as July, the Treasury’s Fixing the Foundations report referred to UK Commission for Employment and Skills research that, by 2020, the UK’s ranking for intermediate technical and professional skills — linked to level three qualifications — will fall to 28th out of 33 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. We need to get these qualifications right more than ever.

Last month marked my first decade in FE. This time 10 years ago I’d just about finished my induction at City College Plymouth (then Plymouth College of FE), couldn’t grow a beard (many say I still can’t) and was probably just about used to calling my teachers by their first names.

If there is one mantra I’ve heard more than any other in that time it’s that FE suffers from an almost absent profile among our national policymakers and decision makers.

Yet, the start of the 2015/16 academic year has seen a plethora of high profile appearances for FE.

The think-tank Skills Minister Nick Boles played a role in founding, Policy Exchange, issued a call for half a billion pounds to be diverted from higher education to FE; the principals of Northampton College, Hackney Community College, Central Sussex College and Heart of Worcester College have all recently been called to give evidence to parliamentary select committees; and that’s before even getting started on the development of a new business tax to fund apprenticeships, a major Ofsted report on apprenticeship quality, the passage of legislation to enable greater devolution of adult skills money to local areas, and the first wave of area reviews and college merger announcements.

I don’t know about you, but I see very little sign that things will be slowing down for us any time soon.

One area not being talked about all that much at the moment is community learning. Some might argue that this is a good thing — not talking about it might mean its relatively sidelined £215m budget might just fall behind Chancellor George Osborne’s sofa in the spending review and be spared from damage.

After all, it’s one of the few adult education budgets that’s done alright so far; 15/16 allocations are near enough the same as last year compared to more than £400m of adult skills budget cuts.

Late last month, without fanfare, the Skills Funding Agency published some of the findings of the Community Learning Learner Satisfaction Survey for 2014/15 [see feweek.co.uk for link].

The findings, to me, begin to add some helpful weight and context for the debates to come about community learning. The survey was carried out by more than 32,000 learners in 170 providers and the profile of learners that responded closely matches the learner population nationally; almost three quarters of community learning learners were women, 72 per cent of survey responses were from women, for example.

Traditionally, learner satisfaction results show that community learning learners are more satisfied with aspects of their course than learners in mainstream FE. The 14/15 results appear to continue this trend; community learning learners recorded higher satisfaction with pre-course information, quality of teaching, feeling listened to and quality of advice about what to do after the course.

To be clear, I’m not talking down the rest of the sector here. These are very high results all around. The results are reported as averages out of ten, where zero is “very bad” and 10 is “very good”. In eight out of the 10 satisfaction scoring questions, the results are at least nine. In the mainstream FE survey, they are all at least eight. Community learning learners rated very highly the quality of teaching, with a score of 9.4, support from staff, also 9.4, and respect from staff, scoring 9.6. The areas learners scored the lowest was pre-course information and post-course advice, but even these had high scores of 8.6 and 8.8 respectively.

The report breaks down these questions, and further questions on outcomes and impacts, further by gender and age group.

For example, one of the highest scoring main outcomes for community learning learners under age 40 was ‘progression to another course’ and for learners aged over 40 was ‘improvement in health or wellbeing’. The report also demonstrates how community learning learners experience greater beneficial outcomes than they initially expect when starting a course.

So the numbers look good, and paint a positive picture from the perspective of learners on paper. There must continue to be a role for community learning. The questions now are whether there will be greater local control, who benefits and, of course, who pays?