Ed Miliband’s apprenticeship pledges should be welcomed, but risk prioritising quantity over quality, FE sector leaders have warned.

Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive Stewart Segal and 157 Group executive director Lynne Sedgmore both cautiously welcomed the pledges delivered in Mr Miliband’s keynote speech to the Labour Party conference, but raised concerns about delivery.

In his speech, Mr Miliband outlined his vision for a skills system in which the same number of school-leavers become apprentices as go to university.

He said this would be achieved through tougher regulation to force firms to hire apprentices and a renewed focus on apprenticeships for those aged 24 and under.

He said: “Our national goal is that by 2025, as many young people will be leaving school or college to go onto an apprenticeship as currently go to university.

“This is an absolutely huge undertaking. We are such a long way away from this as a country. It’s going to require a massive national effort.”

Dr Sedgmore praised his vision but warned that the quality of apprenticeships needed to be addressed as well as the quantity.

She told FE Week: “The pledges he is making are positive and I am pleased it is so high on his agenda. It’s fantastic that it was one of the main points in his speech.

“So we can do nothing but praise that and welcome it. I think the issue for us is quantity is of course important but so is quality. So we would like to see it backed up very quickly by re-assurances and plans for how the apprenticeship experience remains meaningful and leads on to good, solid, sustainable employment.

“My feeling is I laud his vision, it is powerful. That is a vision of parity of esteem and I laud it, but it has to be equivalent to a world class apprenticeship system, so what we are giving these young people or adults is the best possible experience and it has long-term benefits.”

Mr Segal warned that any legislation to force employers to take on apprentices could be a backwards step.

He said: “It’s great that it’s such a top priority, but we don’t want to fall into the trap of being driven by numbers and by particular routes. It’s important to preserve all the options for young people and that would include self-employment, many young people get jobs which are not an apprenticeship.

“Clearly we would all like to bring structured apprenticeship –type programmes for all young people but we don’t want it to be driven by numbers.

“I don’t think it should be legislation. It’s too complex and there are too many variables to try to determine what employers have to do. But I do think there is a long was to go to encourage employers to run apprenticeships and make it easy.

“There is in my view only one type of effective apprenticeship, and that is with a willing employer, a willing learner and in the vast majority of cases a skilled training provider. I think legislating could create more difficulties.”

Pic: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

Apprenticeships will top a list of six goals to be outlined at the Labour conference by party leader Ed Miliband today.

Making the number of school-leavers becoming apprentices equal to the number who go on to university comes first among Mr Miliband’s pledges should Labour win power next year.

His plans for increased apprenticeship numbers, to be unveiled in his keynote speech at party conference in Manchester this afternoon, include tougher regulation to force firms to hire apprentices and a renewed focus on apprenticeships for those aged 24 and under.

He will say: “A plan for our country, a plan for our families, must have at its heart a future for all our young people.

“So here we need the biggest national effort that we have seen for generations with young people showing the ambition to get on, schools and colleges offering gold standard technical qualifications, and business and government leading a revolution in apprenticeships.”

He will go on to say that Labour  in power would require every firm getting a major government contract to offer apprenticeships, insist large employers hiring skilled workers from outside the EU offer apprenticeships to young people in the UK and give employers more control over how the government spends training funds.

Mr Miliband will claim his party would create thousands more apprenticeships in the public sector, including the Civil Service, creating a fast track scheme like that already existing for graduates from top universities and will focus apprenticeships on new entrants to the labour market.

It is the first of six goals, with the remaining five listed as tackling the cost of living crisis; restoring the dream of home ownership; tackling low wages; securing the future; and, saving the NHS.

He will say: “Can anyone build a better future for the working people of Britain? That is the general election question.

“So many people have lost faith in the future. I’ve met young people who should have the brightest of futures who tell me their generation is falling into a black hole. People in England who think all politics is rubbish.

“People in Scotland who wanted to leave our country because they felt they had nothing left to lose.

“Our task is to restore people’s faith in the future. But the way to do it is not to break up our country. It is to break with the old way of doing things, break with the past.”

 

Central government departments are failing to work together on skills policy with “alarming” consequences for the UK workforce, according to the Skills Commission.

Provisional findings of the commission’s Skills and the Changing Structures of Work inquiry were published today — with party conference season getting under way — and included four “alerts,” or skills policy trends it said required “urgent attention”.

The commission argued the trends have developed into “significant barriers to a successful skills policy” capable of providing a labour market skilled to meet the needs of employers across the UK economy.

The barriers were (1) uncertainty around the responsibility for training in an increasingly flexible labour market; (2) declining social mobility owing to a reduction in the alignment of skills provision to work; (3) fragmentation in the system making it difficult for employers to engage and, (4) “alarming policy dissonance” between different central government departments.

Inquiry co-chair Dame Ruth Silver, who is also the Further Education Trust for Leadership president, said: “The structures of work are changing but the structures and practices of training and recruitment are lagging behind and government policies are not always helping.

“The commission has identified four clear trends that we believe are deeply undermining our system of skills provision in the UK.

“It is right that we raise these four trends as ‘alerts’, such is the gravity of the threat they pose, and the urgency with which they must be addressed”.

The four-page provisional report explains how, on the fourth alert, the commission heard evidence during its six-month inquiry of “numerous policy tensions” between the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) the Department for Education (DfE) and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC).

The commission’s interim report said: “The DWP’s introduction of universal credit needs to be more responsive to, and sensitive of, the labour market opportunities for young people and the retention rates of older workers.

“BIS will struggle to boost traineeships while inflexible rules on benefits discourage claimants from training. An adequate system of careers advice and guidance cannot be built without investment from, and the support of, the DfE, and similarly the self-employed will receive lower rates of training while the tax system works as an active disincentive.

“In a time of public austerity and in light of the challenges brought about by more flexible patterns of work, a difficult youth labour market and an ageing workforce, co-operation between the departments of government and their agencies is vital.”

The third alert explains how, “the changing structures of work, and various attempts to ‘keep up’ by government, providers and industry has left us with a system that lacks overarching oversight that ensures the best interests of learners are placed at the heart of the system. There are too many moving parts.”

And, according to the second alert: “Advancement through the labour market has become more difficult for non-graduates. While the labour market has changed the job preferences of non-graduates have not and many are pursuing opportunities in dwindling markets and low paid sectors.”

Meanwhile, the first alert said: “The labour market has become increasingly flexible, with a greater proportion of the workforce now self-employed or working in insecure and part-time arrangements. This raises the question – who is responsible for the training of individuals not working as regular employees?”

Inquiry co-chair Barry Sheerman MP (pictured left), former chair of the House of Commons Education Select Committee, said: “Let us be in no doubt about this. Ensuring the UK has a highly skilled, diverse and responsive labour market is not a party political issue.

“As all three parties head off to conference I urge all parliamentarians to understand that we must work together, with employers, education providers and all relevant players, to urgently solve the alarming gaps in our system of skills provision”.

The commission’s final report is due out at the end of next month.

BIS, DWP, HMRC, and DfE are yet to comment.

See FE Week edition 112, dated Monday, September 29, for reaction to the commission’s findings.

Improving technical education is one of three key campaign priorities for Labour, Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt has announced.

Addressing the Labour Party conference in Manchester, Mr Hunt outlined the three most important issues as his party heads into its general election campaign, including childcare reform, a qualified teacher in every classroom and efforts to provide for the “forgotten 50 per cent”.

He described technical education as the Tories’ “greatest failure” and referred to the “forgotten 50 per cent” of young people who didn’t go to university and were denied “the rewarding education they deserve”.

He added: “The third plank of our plan, is a vocational education system to rival Germany’s.

“A Labour Government will ensure Further Education colleges focused on training for local jobs, proper apprenticeships lasting two years, a technical baccalaureate, with respected qualifications, careers advice, technical degrees so young people can earn and learn.

“The old barriers between academic and technical crumbling under the next Labour government, righting the wrongs of the last five years.”

For extended coverage of the Labour Party conference, see edition 112 of FE Week.