The method used by other European states to recognise English apprenticeships relies on the doomed Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF), a senior civil servant has admitted.
When asked by Lord Liverpool whether the government has any evidence of the UK apprenticeship qualifications being recognised in other EU member states, Mr Gray said the QCF, which is due to be scrapped by regulator Ofqual, currently allowed that recognition to take place.
Mr Gray said: “Essentially an apprenticeship, as you know, is a mixture of work and a series of qualifications which are made up in a series of models.
“And in terms of mapping to Europe, the current UK qualification system overall which is called the QCF maps across to the European equivalent, the European qualifications framework, so that does help other member states, people in other member states, employers in other member states to recognise what the UK means when they say ‘this apprenticeship is made up of these qualifications’.
“They can map those qualifications across to this European framework. And the more that other states also do the same, the more that cross-understanding of the equivalents can be understood.”
The two-year apprenticeship funding reform saga in which employers were expected to be handed government money to pay for training today came to an end — with cash continuing to pass directly from the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) to providers.
Number 10 Downing Street, ahead of tomorrow’s Budget, announced that a “digital apprenticeship voucher” would be introduced for employers to give providers who then claim SFA funding.
A spokesperson said the system would give employers “purchasing power,” but actual government cash to pay for training will go straight to providers — just like the current system — and not into employers’ hands first.
It remained unclear how the new system might incorporate current pilots, including employer incentive payments and mandatory cash contributions, although the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills was expected to reveal more details soon.
A Number 10 spokesperson said: “We are putting employers in control of the funding for apprenticeships by introducing a new digital apprenticeship voucher.
“Apprenticeship vouchers will further simplify things for employers and give them the purchasing power over the government contribution to apprenticeship funding.
“The employer would register their details on a system being developed by the SFA, including their type of business, the details of the apprentice and the apprenticeship standard being signed up to.
“The discounted rate, which could be up to 100 per cent for 16 to 18-year-olds and at which employers can purchase training, would be calculated and the employer would be able to pass on the voucher code to the provider that is delivering the training for their apprentice. The provider would then reclaim the value of the voucher from the SFA.”
It comes just a week after Jennifer Coupland, deputy director of the joint Department for Education and Department for Business, Innovation and Skills apprenticeships Unit, told delegates at the inaugural FE Week apprenticeship conference that “employer-routed funding” remained central to the reform plans despite a number of concerns emerging during two consultations.
“To (mis)use a quote from Mark Twain, rumours of the death of employer-routed funding have been greatly exaggerated,” she said.
“The government remains committed to it and sees it as a core part of the reform system and design to support growth and improvement in apprenticeships.”
However, the reform that has emerged bears little resemblance to the proposals of former BBC Dragons’ Den investor Doug Richard, whose report in late 2012 triggered the reform agenda.
His idea for boosting the attractiveness of apprenticeships to employers was to offer them tax incentives through National Insurance or a tax credit system.
He wanted employers, funded via either system, to pay providers directly for delivering their apprenticeships, adding their own funding to that of the government.
And a three-month technical consultation, which ran from March 6 last year and attracted 1,459 responses, put forward a credit account reform option in addition to a PAYE model — but both were rejected in January as Skills Minister Nick Boles said more design work on the system was needed.
Martin Doel, Association of Colleges chief executive, told FE Week: “It has been a long term intention of government to put the purchasing power for apprenticeships directly in the hands of employers. It remains to be seen if this voucher scheme does make the system simpler for employers as intended, or whether it actually introduces further bureaucratic complexity to apprenticeship funding.”
The new system was also given a cautious welcome by CBI director-general John Cridland, who said: “Employers must be in the driving seat when it comes to apprenticeship funding, so we welcome the announcement of the voucher system but await further details.”
Selling apprenticeships to young people is one thing, and selling them to parents is another. Kirstie Donnelly considers how the FE and skills sector might improve the programme’s chances of being sold.
Two reports were launched this month highlighting, in different ways, the fact that there is a desperate need to increase the value of the apprenticeship brand if the system is to be allowed to achieve its potential.
While it’s great that apprenticeships seem to be fixed firmly on the agenda we must ensure that there is a clear focus on increasing quality
The report also warned against sacrificing quality for quantity, an important point as all the political parties promise significant increases in apprenticeship numbers post-election.
While it’s great that apprenticeships seem to be fixed firmly on the agenda we must ensure that there is a clear focus on increasing quality if they are to truly meet the needs of industry and learners in the future.
We also have to make sure that government isn’t making changes to the system without good reason. That’s something that has been hugely damaging to the image of apprenticeships in the past.
This bias against apprenticeships is well documented, and isn’t shocking as schools are largely staffed with university graduates. If teachers have only experienced one pathway to a career, how can they be expected to advise on others? And it doesn’t help that school league tables count pupils who follow the academic route as a success but ignores other positive outcomes.
That’s why the Demos report called for three things.
Firstly, a high-quality public sector careers service; secondly, a chance for all 14 to 16year-old students to take a vocational subject alongside academic study; and thirdly, improved monitoring of school-leavers to find out how their choices have affected their careers.
I strongly support these recommendations and think that they will go a long way towards a fairer system that values academic and vocational education equally.
But it’s not just the Government that has a role to play. The FE sector has three clear responsibilities.
We need, firstly, to work closely with employers to create an apprenticeship system that meets their needs. The FE sector has the skills and the experience, even dare I say the creativity to design programmes that can deliver the quality teaching and support. Employers have the understanding of the outcomes their industries truly need and the detailed insight as to what is really required. It’s important that we demonstrate as a sector that we understand these needs and can respond to them. If we don’t, we could end up being cut out of the equation, which would only lead to poorer quality apprenticeships. We must ensure that we focus very clearly on outcomes, both for the employer and the learner.
Secondly, we need to get the message out there about how great apprenticeships are. The Demos report also found that whilst 90 per cent of parents think apprenticeships are a good option for young people, less than a third would be happy for their own child to do one. This is hardly surprising, as 86 per cent of respondents said they felt that apprenticeships were for less able students. What parent would want their child to limit their life chances by encouraging them to take a route they believed to be second rate?
What few parents realise though is that doing an apprenticeship could net their child a starting salary of more than £30k and the opportunity to avoid student debt that often totals more than £44k.
And thirdly, we need to champion higher apprenticeships. For apprenticeships to be recognised as high quality by learners and employers we need to promote higher apprenticeships so we have a system that gives access to the UK’s top jobs. This way, it can become a genuine alternative to a degree.
If we can create a gold standard in apprenticeships, ensuring they are the highest quality and improve how they are perceived, we are also opening the doors for the learners to be fairly remunerated and increasing their earning power in the longer term. This is ultimately the very best way to win over parents and young people.
It’s clear from both the reports that there is a lot of work to be done to secure the future of apprenticeships. The education sector, businesses and policymakers need work together to promote apprenticeships as a first-rate option to be considered by all young people.
We have a real opportunity in our hands right now. We won’t get all the solutions from government and we shouldn’t expect to. We must take control and work more collaboratively with each other, and importantly, with employers.
If we do this then we will be able to ensure that our sector finally gets the recognition it deserves, and most importantly, that the learners get the futures they deserve.
How do you handle your new principal’s demands? Is the managing director refusing to budge? Dr Sue Pember, the former head of FE and skills investment at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), who was awarded an OBE for services to the sector in 2000, puts her extensive sector knowledge to good use in a new section for FE Week.
On the third Monday of every month she answers your questions, backed by the experience of almost a decade as principal of Canterbury College, in addition to time served in further senior civil service posts at the Department for Education and Employment, Department for Education and Skills, and Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills.
In Dr Sue’s first section, she answers some of the questions she gets asked most often. Email DrSue@feweek.co.uk to ask her your question.
I am a sabbatical officer and therefore am not a student or elected representative. This means that I often feel very out of touch with my students and fear they find me difficult to talk to and do not see me as a peer.
I do try to hold regular Student Executive Meetings but attendance is often poor and students are far from enthusiastic and proactive. Although I put on workshops and the like as part of the Youth and Wellbeing Team these are rarely well received and students are blasé at best.
This makes it incredibly difficult for me too truly grasp the wants and needs of my students. Is there something I can do to improve this or are these simply the trials that should be expected when trying to represent FE students?
Aubrey Powell, student president at Lincoln, Newark and Gainsborough College
Please don’t lose faith or get demotivated. Seeing that you attended the NUS conference and are now writing to me shows you are very committed. And yes, it is difficult and you are not alone in being unsure about whether you are making an impact.
Your first step is to talk to your principal, head of student experience and clerk, and explain that you want be proactive but you need their help. Ask about whether they feel the student voice is strong enough? You might find they are worried too. Go with a set of suggestions about what you would like to do, such as monthly surgeries, and ask if they could advertise them. Say you would like to join the programme course reviews so that you can pick up on student issues, and start a “you said it and we acted upon it” initiative.
You also need to see what’s happening elsewhere. Go on visits to other colleges to pick up on best practice and bring those ideas back. Talk to NUS and look at their development materials. Get other governors on side by taking a paper to the board about strengthening the student voice. And, of course, make the best use you can of social media.
Please let me know how you get on.
It can take a newly-appointed governor (fresh to FE and corporate governance) at least two years to get their feet under the corporation table, so to speak.
Over the following six years they accumulate considerable knowledge and governance experience, at a cost to the college for training events, conferences, and as well as their own time. Knowledge associated with the running of the college — with all the complexities of the various funding streams, multi-site campus operations, curriculum and associated delivery quality management.
Then, just when they consider that they are making a really worthwhile contribution their (two by four years) eight years are up and they are off the Board and “redundant”.
Current personal experience suggests that colleges are not too keen to take on experienced governors and some still operate a representative agenda. Perhaps this attitude needs further research and maybe a “re-cycling scheme” introduced for experienced governors who still wish to support this exciting sector?
Graham Briscoe, former college governor
You raise a very interesting question which is being widely discussed at the moment. There is a move to limit the time governors spend at a single college, mainly because there is perceived wisdom that the longer a person stays the less likely they are to challenge and scrutinise the way a college operates. I agree with you that research needs to be done in this area.
It is felt that new governors will bring new ideas and challenge established assumptions and long held views. It is thought that some of the problems of governance seen in recent years exist because everyone is too comfortable and cosy.
New governors, if well selected, could bring in new ideas and fresh perspectives but, they need a good induction and support to get them up to speed quickly. The role of a search committee is to get a balance of experience and knowledge, which provides challenge and fresh new ways of thinking and working.
I see some scope for your concept of recycling although I wouldn’t like it be called that. Experience and challenge is much needed in the sector. I recently heard of several governors who, having done their two terms in one college, have moved on to another college to support that college’s development. Often these governors have been able to go in as the chair because they have exactly the skills needed to match college needs.
Careers advice should be “high up the agenda” in the next parliament, the House of Commons education select committee urged today in a review of its work over the past five years.
The committee has published the eighth report of this parliament, which re-caps the work of the committee over the past five years.
In the section looking at the committee’s 2013 report on careers advice, the report says the issue remains a “work in progress” and should be a priority for the next government.
The report says: “Our report described the decision to transfer responsibility for careers guidance to individual schools as regrettable, and expressed concern that the quality of careers advice available to students was deteriorating.
“We recommended changes to increase the incentives for schools to provide the careers advice that their students need, including publication of an annual careers plan. We also recommended that the government require schools to work towards the quality in careers standard.
“While the government rejected this recommendation, we are pleased that it is considering updating its guidance on careers advice to include information about the quality in careers standard.
“In response to our report the government also accepted our recommendation that the National Careers Service should play a greater role in capacity building and brokering relationships between schools and employers.”
The report goes on to make reference to an appearance by Education Secretary Nicky Morgan in front of the committee in January, after which she was accused of “evading” questions about a new careers company.
The report continues: “When we returned to this issue a year after the publication of our report, it was clear to us that careers advice in schools was not improving, so we followed up our inquiry with a one-off session with the Secretary of State in January 2015.
“Drawing on this session, we recommended in our report on apprenticeships that the government urgently review the incentives for schools to provide good quality careers advice and recognise that the mantra of “trusting schools” does not work when the interests of schools and young people are not aligned.
“This remains a work in progress and should be high up the agenda in the next parliament.”
Eddie Playfair carefully opens an A4 envelope and tilts it forward, prompting a few dozen neatly cut press clippings to fall and scatter across his desk.
The yellowing pieces of newsprint date back more than two decades to his days as a councillor in Waltham Forest, North London.
They’ve kindly been dug out for the purposes of this interview and they paint an interesting picture of a life long before his time as principal of Newham Sixth Form College and chair of the Sixth Form Colleges’ Association (SFCA).
“I was only on the council for four years,” says the father-of-four. “But it was a very intense four years — a very heady time.
“It was the heyday of municipal socialism, where local councils really had the ability to do things, to try out different ways of doing things.
“I became chair of education, and found myself, as quite a young councillor, really making very significant decisions about education in the borough.
Leyton Labour Party’s newsletter from 1986. From left: Labour council candidates Clive Morton, Annette Briggs and Playfair.
“We inherited a big reorganisation of schools in Waltham Forest which led to the creation of two sixth form colleges [Sir George Monoux College and Leyton Sixth Form College], which was my first contact with sixth form colleges.
“I was very committed to the idea that these colleges would be comprehensive and would serve all the young people and offer a very broad curriculum and that the staying on rate would rise, achievements should rise and so on.”
In the days before colleges were incorporated in 1992, the FE landscape looked very different.
“It was possible in those days to say that the local authority did actually run and steer education,” says 54-year-old Playfair.
“We used to steer the FE colleges’ budget. We would vote in the education committee in the council on the budget for the local FE college. That seems unthinkable now, and as a principal I would hate it.
“Looking back, it must have been very difficult for the management of the college, so I think the move towards institutional autonomy has broadly been a good thing.
“On the other hand, it has been a bad thing that local democracy has been hollowed out in education and in some of the other areas.
“Local authorities still do lots of good work, but in a much more constrained way.
“I’m not saying we were all perfect but we did try and actually use our powers to shape our area in a distinctive way, and that’s much, much harder now.”
Playfair aged 3 in Corsica
Playfair, who has a grandson, threw himself into the council role — and admits that his job as a science teacher at Haringey’s White Hart Lane School (now Woodside High School) took “a bit of a back seat”.
And his own personal experience of schooling in England had done little to prepare him for such a profession.
Playfair, whose mother Line is from Corsica, attended a French school near where he grew up in West London, and so, he says, he’s always looked at English schooling “as a bit of an outsider”.
“Things like assemblies and form tutors and the traditions of English schooling just were very alien to me,” he says.
“I have no experience of them at all, despite the fact I was growing up in London as an English boy.”
The French method of teaching at the time, he says, was “dry, rigorous and didactic”.
“The classroom wasn’t very involving,” he says.
“I was capable of doing what needed to be done, but I didn’t see the point of lots of the things we were doing, and I don’t think the teachers put a lot of thought into helping us see the point of things.”
The experience left him convinced he “definitely” didn’t want to be a teacher.
He initially wanted to be a scientist, following in the footsteps of his immunologist dad, John, but realised after spending the sandwich year of his degree working in a research lab “that it didn’t really suit me”.
“It wasn’t social enough,” he says. “You weren’t out and about, interacting with people and I realised that wasn’t how I wanted to spend my time.”
We would vote in the education committee in the council on the budget for the local FE college. That seems unthinkable now
In the end, it was Playfair’s interest in politics that brought him round to the idea of teaching, after getting involved with the Labour Party as an “idealistic” 17-year-old and then taking the unusual step of becoming a primary school governor at the tender age of 19.
“I was still looking in on a system I had no personal experience of, which was quite interesting,” he said.
“And it was that experience that made me think maybe teaching might be worth considering.”
But, he says, what really got him “switched on” to teaching was observing a PGCE science class towards the end of his degree.
“I just thought: ‘This is fantastic — here are people reflecting and thinking about how to teach scientific topics to children, how to engage and interest them and help them acquire these concepts and enthuse them about science,’” explains Playfair.
“And it was a bit of a moment really, because I realised I could do this and I could enjoy this, and I could commit myself to this.”
He signed up to a PGCE course on graduating and got a job at Walthamstow Girls School, before moving on to White Hart Lane and then Enfield County.
From there he made a sideways move into FE as the head of science at Tower Hamlets College.
“I wanted a more exciting job,” he explains.
“And I arrived in this place where I had my own building, effectively my own staff, my own curriculum.
Playfair’s campaign poster when he ran for Parliament in 1993
“That was the point when I started to think actually there was such a thing as leadership, and you had to think a bit about what it was to be a manager and to steer an organisation.”
This epiphany, he says, was largely down to the “wonderful” Tower Hamlets principal at the time, Annette Zera.
“She was, I suppose, the person that showed me you could be a principal without being like all the other principals,” he says.
“Not so much now, but in those days you did feel like there was a bit of a ‘type’, you know, a rather grey, middle-aged, middle class, white, male type, who were principals, and who did the job in a particular way, expressed themselves in a particular way — it felt like a fairly narrow spectrum really.
“And if you didn’t feel like you fitted that type, it was hard to see yourself being a principal, so it didn’t even occur to me.
“But what Annette showed us was that you could be authentic and true to your own style, values and way of doing things and still be a great principal.
“And the sector has been enriched by a more diverse set of people, I think, and Annette was a role model for that.”
Playfair’s ID card for Waltham Forest Council
From there, Playfair moved to Leicester’s Regent College for six years, before the role at Newham came up in 2008, which he describes as having presented “an irresistible opportunity”.
But as chair of the SFCA, Playfair knows the allure of a sixth form colleges’ career is taking a hit from the current government’s handling of the sector.
“Politicians are not really clear what they want but, I think if there’s any one thing it seems to be a market — they want a choice,” he says.
“So we find ourselves now in competition with a lot of new providers, either converter academies that have created sixth forms, or some of the new free school sixth forms.
“But I think it’s a phase we’re going through — the pendulum will swing back.
“There will be a much more positive, more collaborative climate, where people will see the point of looking at an area and saying, ‘let’s have a rational, sensible post-16 plan for the needs of students in this area’.”
And it seems Playfair doesn’t miss his political career.
“My passion is the college — making it as good as it can be and developing it further,” he says.
“It’s a wonderful place with wonderful values and ethos — it’s very rooted in the community.
“It’s the dream job for me.”
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It’s a personal thing
What is your favourite book, and why?
I don’t know if I have a single favourite book, but I do love the Philip Roth novels, like American Pastoral and The Human Stain and things like that. If I had to choose a favourite book it would be Primo Levy’s The Periodic Table which I read years and years ago and keep coming back to — it’s just absolutely marvellous
What do you do to switch off from work?
Music. I play the piano, so sitting at the piano and just playing for my own enjoyment is incredibly relaxing and a lovely contrast to what I’m doing the rest of the time. It’s a very therapeutic experience
What’s your pet hate?
I do have a very kind of optimistic and positive outlook on the future, so I suppose if there’s something I don’t like, it’s when it feels like people have given up believing that we can make things better. I suppose cynicism, you might say
If you could invite anyone to a dinner party, living or dead, who would it be?
I should say a composer or a writer to try and distract me from education, which is a bit of an obsession, but honestly I think I would probably say John Dewey who was a great educationalist and a great public intellectual in early 20th Century America. He would be a very interesting person to have a chat with
What did you want to be when you grew up?
Not a teacher, definitely. I wanted to be a scientist and I probably went through a phase of wanting to be a politician as well
A Chelmsford College student shaved off her locks and raised more than £2,000 for Cancer Research UK.
Jodie Guyver before her fundraising cut for cancer research UK
Health and social care level three apprentice Jodie Guyver took the bold chop after witnessing her close friend, Rebecca James, suffer with cancer as a teenager.
After hearing the news that Rebecca had been given the all clear, Jodie was determined to do more for others and chose the hairdressers as the perfect opportunity to raise money.
The 17-year-old said: “I am overwhelmed with the response from friends, family and all those that kindly donated and showed up here today to give their support.
“The charity is one that is close to my heart and hopefully we can make a difference to other cancer sufferers. I’m getting used to my new hair, or lack of.”
Above: Jodie Guyver gets her head shaved by NVQ level three diploma in hairdressing apprentice, Danielle O’Donoghue, aged 23, for cancer research UK.
Not even wild polar bears will stop West Cheshire College learner and former soldier Peter Bowker when he takes on a world record attempt of being the first amputee to complete the unsupported crossing of the Greenland ice cap, writes Billy Camden.
Facing -37˚C temperatures over a 600-kilometre trek 27-year-old counselling learner Peter Bowker will rely on his specialist army training to overcome the obstacles in his way.
Peter being stretchered into a helicopter after hitting an IED in Afghanistan
He takes on the world record attempt to become the first amputee to complete the unsupported crossing of the Greenland ice cap on May 5 to raise money for a charity close to his heart, Help for Heroes (H4H).
“I left the army in 2012 so I understand the amazing work that H4H does and I wanted to do something different to raise money for the charity,” said Peter.
“I haven’t set a specific target, we just want to raise as much as we can.”
He added: “People who have done this type of challenge before say it is 10 per cent physical and 90 per cent psychological, and for me, coming from a military background, I think gives me a good base level of psychological readiness.”
Peter will lead the ’65 degrees north’ project, a six-person team undertaking the 30-day trek.
It has gained support from the Endeavour Fund, a Royal foundation set up by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry, as well as backing from celebrity Ross Kemp as a patron.
Travelling on skis and pull pulks containing food, clothing and survival equipment, the team is expecting to come face-to-face with resident polar bears and deep crevasses.
Peter working tirelessly to prepare himself for the 65 degrees north expedition
Peter said: “We have to assess what the risks and dangers are and what the possible outcomes can be. I have accepted the element of risk and am determined to complete the expedition.”
Peter’s right leg was amputated after an explosion in Afghanistan in 2008.
Travelling in an armoured vehicle called a Mastiff, Peter’s team hit an
IED road side bomb resulting in him badly injuring his
foot and ankle and shattering his femur.
He spent three and a half years at Headley Court rehabilitation centre where he was eventually told that he would lose his right leg.
“What affected me the most was being surrounded by so many seriously injured young men for that length of time, it changed me quite a lot,” said Peter.
Peter takes a break during his demanding training schedule in preparation for the world record attempt
“After that experience I made some really drastic personal changes and now make the most of the life I have because when you see it being taken away from so many people it really does change your outlook and perspective on life.”
Since his return from rehabilitation, Peter made it his goal to help others.
In 2013 he completed a trek to Peru and then took part in an event called Heroes Challenge UK, a cycle from John O’Groats to Land’s End via the four highest peaks of each country in Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
He joined West Cheshire College to study a counselling and psychotherapy central awarding body (CPCAB) intermediate certificate in counselling studies with a view to using the qualification as a stepping stone to university and the pursuit of a career in the profession.
Visit www.bmycharity.com/65degreesnorth to make a donation to 65 Degrees North.
The speakers spoke and the audience listened — they even got to pose questions. So with the curtain having come down on the huge success that was the first FE Week annual apprenticeship conference, David Harbourne gives his overview of events.
The inaugural FE Week Annual Apprenticeship Conference was a fantastic opportunity to catch up on the latest developments in apprenticeship policy and practice.
There were plenty of facts and figures, clearly presented — not least by the newspaper’s former editor, Nick Linford, who has a knack of making complicated information easy to absorb.
Conference host Kirsty Wark also did a fantastic job of asking just the right questions, in just the right way.
That said, we didn’t get clear answers to every question. Skills Minister Nick Boles couldn’t announce the government’s final decision on funding reform, though he hinted we might not have long to wait.
Meanwhile, his advisers told us what they could about future stages of reform, but when they talk about “open policy making” and “iterative processes”, they usually mean “watch this space”.
On the other side of the political divide, Chukka Umunna didn’t go down as well as he might have hoped. Labour has made technical education and apprenticeships a major theme of their election campaign, but two things niggled this time round.
First, he wants to limit the word “apprenticeship” to levels three and above. He plans to rename level two provision, not abolish it — but the audience clearly didn’t like the idea, and didn’t hesitate to tell him.
Second, he gave no pledge on adult skills funding. Instead, he told us Labour would face “some very difficult choices” if elected in May, and would “have to justify every pound of government spending”.
We don’t know what the final apprenticeship landscape will look like. We don’t even have a firm grip on some of the things that matter most to employers and apprentices alike, such as end assessments
Yet in almost the same breath, he reminded us that Labour wants to limit higher education fees to £6,000. That helps the “remembered 50 per cent” — but what about the “forgotten 50 per cent”?
We also heard from the chair of the House of Commons Education Select Committee, Graham Stuart.
Presenting the committee’s new report on apprenticeships, he started by highlighting the risk that Trailblazers will be dominated by larger companies.
On funding, he said small firms should be given a choice between administering it themselves, or accessing it via a provider.
And he called for the return of pre-16 work experience and Young Apprenticeships.
But as the dust settled in the days after the conference, one thing struck me more than any other. It’s the remarkable resilience of colleges and independent learning providers.
I’ve been involved in vocational education and training for 25 years now and lived through seemingly endless reform. A constant has been the willingness of providers and professionals to say: “Give us the tools and we’ll do the job”.
It’s no different this time round, except we’re not working to a clear, coherent plan.
Straight after Doug Richard delivered his report, the government made a deliberate decision. Rather than draw up a detailed implementation plan, it said: “Let’s just get on with it and deal with issues as they arise.”
So we don’t know what the final apprenticeship landscape will look like. We don’t even have a firm grip on some of the things that matter most to employers and apprentices alike, such as end assessments.
What we do know is that there are living, breathing people out there whose future will be brighter because of apprenticeships. We heard from one of them — Michael — at the conference, and he stole the show.
So for the sake of all the people who need apprenticeships and all the people committed to delivering them, let’s hope we soon get a good, clear plan, the funds to deliver it, and the political will to see it through.
