New apprenticeship frameworks will no longer be forced to include pass, merit and distinction gradings, the Skills Minister has revealed.

Skills Minister Nick Boles told FE Week he would be assessing whether apprenticeships should be graded on a “case by case” basis.

The U-turn by the new Minister follows “very strong representations” by the sector, Mr Boles said.

Concerns were first raised when the implementation plan for apprenticeship reform, published under previous Skills Minister Matthew Hancock in October 2013, said all elements of every apprenticeship framework would have to be graded at pass, merit or distinction.

In March 2014 Mr Hancock said only the end result would be graded but Mr Boles has now said there may be some areas where it is “inappropriate” to grade apprentices’ work at all and instead a simple pass or fail should be offered.

Mr Boles spoke to FE Week following publication today of ‘Guidance for developers of apprenticeship standards and related assessment plans’, which stated that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) had “agreed a compromise position which ensured grading was applied where it could be”.

However, the document stated: “In a small number of cases it may not be possible to grade any aspect of the apprenticeship due to assessments within the apprenticeship being aligned with external organisations or regulations which do not incorporate grading.”

It added BIS would consider requests not to grade an apprenticeship where assessments were aligned with professional registration, regulation or a licence to practise, but would only make exemptions for specific standards, not for an entire sector or industry.

Standard developers wishing to request an exemption form grading should contact their relationship manager, it said.

The document also suggested that a merit grade may not be required.

“A pass grade in any apprenticeship must demonstrate full competency against the standard you have set and there will need to be at least one grade above pass to recognise exceptional performance.”

Mr Boles said: “It’s still very much a strong preference that as many can be graded are graded.”

But he said, in cases involving “very strongly regulated activities” or “particular safety aspects”, he would be willing to make an exception.

He said: “There have been very strong representations that grading is inappropriate – because bluntly does anyone want to know that somebody responsible for their safety in an aeroplane was a good and somebody else was a distinction?”

He added: “You want to know that everybody has met all of the standards fully.”

FE Week understands that some frameworks connected to the maritime industry are among the first to be allowed go without grading.

“We’ve made the odd exception and we’ll make the odd one where the arguments are good enough,” Mr Boles said.

“Case by case, we’re willing to take arguments but the broad thrust is that where at all possible we want graded because we want the qualifications to be like other qualifications, which are graded.”

Picture: Nick Boles with BSkyB interns Kiran Hussain, aged 18 and Priscilla Ossai, 21, in the Sky Sports studios, where he spoke to FE Week

Vocational education expert and academic Alison Wolf is to join the House of Lords, it has been announced.

Professor Wolf, who authored the ground-breaking 2011 report on vocational education which informed much of current government skills policy, was nominated for a life peerage by Prime Minister David Cameron.

And it has been announced today that Mr Cameron’s recommendation has been accepted by The Queen and that Professor Wolf will join the upper house as a cross-bench Peer, meaning she will sit without party political affiliation.

In a statement issued by King’s College, Professor Wolf said: “I am delighted, and obviously very honoured. I’m looking forward to using it do the things I believe in.”

A spokesperson for 10 Downing Street said: “The Queen has been pleased to confer a peerage of the United Kingdom for Life on Sir Jonathan Evans KCB, Sir Robert Rogers KCB, Professor Alison Wolf CBE and Sir Andrew Green KCMG. All four are expected to sit on the Cross Bench.

“These individuals have been nominated personally by the Prime Minister for their public service.”

Professor Wolf is a professor of public sector management at King’s College London and a key adviser to the government, which has adopted her principle of study programmes for learners aged 16 to 19 among other policies.

After graduating from Oxford with a degree in politics, philosophy and economics in the early 1970s, Professor Wolf moved to America, initially continuing her studies and moonlighting as a journalist.

She ended up working for the National Institute of Education and the US Government, advising on educational matters, before returning to the UK in the mid-1980s.

In the early 1990s, Professor Wolf secured Nuffield Foundation funding for research into the evaluation of GNVQs, which took her back to a policy role and into the media spotlight.

She eventually worked for the Institute of Education before joining King’s College and being invited to advise the government.

The number of under-performing colleges and apprenticeship training providers should be halved by 2020, the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission has said.

In its second State of the Nation report, the Commission, which is chaired by former Labour Cabinet Minister Alan Milburn (above), set out its “2020 challenge”, in which it sets out a list of goals to be met by the end of the next Parliament.

The report calls for efforts to raise the percentage of employers providing apprenticeships from 15 to 50 per cent, a move which the report says would lead to 3.5m starts in the next Parliament.

Part of the report focuses on the role of FE Commissioner Dr David Collins (right) and calls for failing colleges and providers to be closed if they fail to improve.

The report says: “We also look to the FE Commissioner to intervene to secure the closure of further education and apprenticeship providers who cannot improve their standards.

“By 2020, we believe the government, educational institutions and Ofsted should have halved the number of under-performing colleges and apprenticeship training providers.

“Finally, we propose that early in the next Parliament responsibility for growing youth employment is devolved to local areas, each of which should put in place a day one intervention system to get young people who drop out of education or work immediately back on track.”

The report acknowledges that FE inspection outcomes had recorded “some improvement over the last year” – a seven percentage point increase in providers judged good or outstanding – but adds that “there remains a high level of provision that is not good enough”.

It continues: “The numbers of providers judged inadequate increased from 34 to 41, up by a fifth, and more than 1m young people in vocational education were let down by the quarter of further education colleges in England whose inspections concluded the institution required improvement or was inadequate.

“Similarly, apprenticeship training inspections found just under half required improvement or were inadequate.

“Four inadequate further education colleges alone are failing more than 40,000 pupils. For vocational reforms to positively impact social mobility a step change in quality is needed. The commission agrees with Ofsted that this should be a matter of priority for the FE Commissioner.”

The report (left) also highlights a need for the number of employers providing apprenticeships, currently at 15 per cent, to rise.

It says: “Proposals to expand apprenticeship in the future are welcome but there is a need to move further and faster. The Commission recommends therefore that half of workplaces with ten or more staff should employ apprentices by 2020.

“We would also like to see workplaces of over ten employees that currently offer apprenticeships expanding their numbers. This would lead to around 100,000 more workplaces offering apprenticeships and more than 3.5m apprentice starts between 2015 and 2020, based on current trends.

“We hope that at least ten percent of new starts could be at the higher apprenticeship level, providing more routes to top jobs. Companies have said they want to increase numbers. Now is the time to make good this enthusiasm. Costs will partly be borne by employers, in line with current pilots. Costs to government for 16 to 18-year-old apprentices should be met through funds that otherwise would have been spent on further education.

“The adult apprenticeship budget, around £700m should be focused on rigorous and high quality apprenticeships for those under 24, as many older people would receive training even if the government did not fund apprenticeships. The need to expand good apprenticeships must remain at the forefront of reforms of vocational education in the next parliament. Employers are key in making this a reality.”

The report also suggests that transferring FE funding to councils could “better enable local authorities to identify local skills gaps and respond accordingly”.

Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive Stewart Segal (right) has welcomed the report’s recommendations on apprenticeships.

He said: “We believe that this will require more investment by the government in the programme and a modification of the currently proposed reforms that may place artificial barriers in the way of greater SME engagement such as mandatory cash contributions by employers.

“A more responsive and flexible contracting system between the government and providers would make a big difference in terms of the Commission’s proposed target of half of all workplaces with more than ten employees to be offering high quality apprenticeships by 2020.

“AELP has made a number of recommendations to change the apprenticeship reforms which will ensure that providers can work with employers to drive up the quality of the current apprenticeship systems.”