Apprentices from across the country aired their views on the programme at a debate in Central London.

Reporter Rebecca Cooney went along to watch those at the centre of National Apprenticeship Week have their say.

The first ever apprentice debate was organised by the Industry Apprenticeship Council (IAC) alongside the Voice of Apprenticeships conference held by Apprenticeships for England on Tuesday (March 4).

It was held in the former debating chamber of the Greater London Assembly, in County Hall.

The debate was led by founding IAC member and third year Vauxhall apprentice Lizzie Moffat, who thanked Skills Minister Matthew Hancock for attending.

She said: “Events like this are so important for you to make your voice heard.

 

 

“We have achieved so much, but we can achieve so much more with the help of government and industry.”

Many apprentice delegates said there was an issue with the way apprenticeships were perceived.

One delegate said: “ When I left school, the idea I had of apprenticeships was this old fashioned idea about being financially tied to an employer for four years in a craft or industry, I didn’t know it was more than that.”

Another apprentice added that there were problems with how modern apprenticeships were seen by parents and teachers.

“At the moment I think apprenticeships are the ‘last resort’ in many people’s eyes, they’re a second chance not a first choice,” he said.

Another delegate agreed, saying: “Schools see university as the best thing — they think it’s looks best for them if you go to uni, so that’s the only option they push.”

One of the major themes of the event was careers guidance as many delegates complained they had not been made aware of apprenticeships at school.

“I was at sixth form,” one apprentice told the room. “And every Wednesday afternoon was dedicated to supporting you to fill out your UCAS form to go to university — if you didn’t turn up, you got detention.

“When I said I didn’t want to go to uni, they brought in a careers adviser — and even she didn’t know about apprenticeships.”

The experience was reflected by many who said that not only did schools prioritise universities, they did not seem to know about the other options.

One apprentice said: “I think it’s really important that we should be going to our employers and telling them we want to go and tell school students about it ourselves.”

Another said this had been very successful when she had returned to her old school to spread the word.

However, one apprentice with Fujitsu said: “Fujitsu has a project planned for 2014 to get apprentices talking in as many schools as possible.

“I think it’s a great idea, but we have had rejections from schools when we’ve asked to come in, they don’t want us. It’s ridiculous, but it happens.”

Apprenticeships should also be promoted in Job Centres, one delegate said, pointing out that school-leavers were not the only people who could benefit from the programme.

Another topic which drew heated debate was the issue of whether apprentices should be represented by the National Union of Students (NUS).

Kicking off the conversation, Ms Moffat said: “By all means we can keep up to date with them, but what we’re doing is completely different to university.”

One apprentice agreed.

“We’re working, we’re not in education, so our experience of life is totally different,” she said.

Another said he did not believe apprentices would be regarded in the same way as university students and said he did not want to be part of the “little brother” arm of the NUS.

However, another delegate said: “You are shooting yourselves in the foot if you distance yourselves from students — we may be working, but we are all students and currently we are eligible for membership of the NUS.
“Pulling away from the biggest organisation, with the reputation it’s got, will damage the chance of apprenticeships being known alongside universities.”

Every apprentice who spoke was positive about their apprenticeship and the opportunities it offered them, and in a show of hands, the majority said they were hoping to take their learning on to higher apprenticeship level.

Ben Pike (pictured below), director at QA, which sponsored the event, said: “This is one of the most exciting things for me — it’s not about apprenticeships versus a degree, because apprenticeships can be another way to a degree, if you want them to be.”

He also thanked the apprentices for their contributions.

“One of the most important things for us is to hear from you,” he said.

Mr Hancock said the debate had been “fascinating” and “useful” and praised the apprentices for the articulate arguments they had put forward.

The FE Commissioner’s findings of his inspection of the under-fire Barnfield Federation have been published, giving another damning verdict on its leadership and governance.

Commissioner David Collins called for at least half the governors to be replaced and for “significant changes” to the federation’s leadership, following his visit in January.

His findings were made public in a letter from Skills Minister Matthew Hancock and Schools Minister Lord Nash to the Barnfield governors’ chair.

A Department for Business, Innovation and Skills spokesperson said the letter containing the commissioner’s findings had been published “due to the unique nature” of the investigation.

However, as well as being scrutinised by Mr Collins, the college has been under investigation by the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) and the Education Funding Agency (EFA), whose reports were passed onto police. Both were critical of those at the top of the college, and were passed onto Hertfordshire Police, but the force said it wouldn’t pursue a case.

A Barnfield Federation spokesperson told FE Week it had been, “working for some months to address the issues raised by the agency investigation, and are putting in place a set of actions which address those issues”.

Former director general of the corporation Sir Peter Birkett (pictured), who left the federation in June, said: “The reports identified human errors often found in large complex and dynamic organisations such as Barnfield — many of the key findings were known about and planned for.

“Although the reports identified some surprises it also confirmed that the college is financially healthy with £21.5m reserves.”

The EFA and SFA reports were published late last month and revealed that Sir Peter received a number of bonuses not specified in his contract when he left — including being allowed to keep a £30,000 Audi, paid for by the college— which the reports said were “not proper use of college funds”.

The reports also showed auditors KPMG shaved £1m off college funding claims where guided learning hours did not match attendance registers.

And the commissioner found that “the governing body has not provided sufficient oversight of the corporation and the federation as its sponsor, nor has it provided adequate scrutiny and challenge of the executive team.”

Skills Minister Matthew Hancock (pictured) has been accused of “leading Parliament up the garden path” with claims to be cutting spending on qualifications that were never even eligible for public funding.

He told the House of Commons on Wednesday that more than 5,000 qualifications, including “balloon artistry and instructing pole fitness will no longer” be paid for by taxpayers.

But, having learned of the qualifications’ learning aim reference numbers (see below) from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), FE Week found the two examples had never been listed for government money anyway, and so could not have had any publicly-funded adult enrolments.

Speaking in the House of Commons about reforms to vocational qualifications, which featured in FE Week last year and most recently two months ago, Mr Hancock said: “We support vocational qualifications that help people into work, so we must focus support on those that employers value.

“As a result of these reforms, qualifications in subjects such as self-tanning, balloon artistry and instructing pole fitness will no longer attract government funding.”

His comments have been branded misleading by Shadow Skills Minister Liam Byrne, while other sector leaders have also accused the government of belittling valuable qualifications.

Mr Byrne told FE Week: “We all agree with the need to simplify qualifications, but this is evidence that hapless Matthew Hancock has been leading Parliament up the garden path.

“He’s either messed it up again or deliberately set out a false impression. Either way, he needs to come up with some straight answers for Parliament — and fast.”

The move, according to a BIS press release on Wednesday, meant that “nearly £200m of the adult skills budget will be re-directed towards the highest quality and most relevant qualifications”.

But Federation of Awarding Bodies chief executive Jill Lanning accused the government of misleading the public with the press release, which also mentioned said qualifications.

She said: “I think by choosing examples not eligible for funding, it has added insult to injury. It is misleading to have put them in the introduction of the press release.”

A BIS spokesperson declined to comment on the claims, which relate to the reform publication Getting the job done: the government’s reform plan for vocational qualifications.

However, Ms Lanning added: “We take issue with the government’s assertion that qualifications that have not met their criteria for the performance tables or for funding, such as minimum size, are automatically of poor quality.”

Association of Colleges chief executive Martin Doel said: “It’s unfortunate that there’s little understanding or recognition that some of the courses derided in this announcement are those which are important in encouraging vulnerable adults, for example those who are recovering from mental or physical health issues or redundancy, back into work-related training and into employment.”

David Hughes, chief executive of the National Institute for Adult Continuing Education, said: “Often, people find so-called ‘low-value’ courses a great way to step back into learning, to help them rebuild their confidence and they then go on to take further courses and qualifications.”

Mr Hancock said: “We are determined to make sure that people who work hard to achieve a qualification can be sure that it is recognised as meaningful and valuable to employers and that it makes a real contribution to our long-term economic plan for Britain.”

It comes with providers still waiting for the Skills Funding Agency to publish the funding rules, rates and allocations for 2014/15.

The three qualification learning aims in the BIS press release and mentioned by the Minister in the House of Commons

60121920   City & Guilds Level 1 Award In Designing and Creating a Display of Aerial Balloons for an Event

60119974    Active IQ Level 2 Award In Instructing XPERT Pole Fitness

50088439  City & Guilds Level 3 Award in Self Tanning

Spreadsheets of qualifications at risk of losing 19+ funding eligibility 

List of qualifications that will not be available as part of the 2014/15 offer as there was no or low demand

Annual Review 2012: Qualifications for which funding ceased on 31 July 2013

Not enough has been done to meet recommendations for the future of careers advice in England outlined by the National Careers Council (NCC), the watchdog has said.

In its report, An Aspirational Nation: Achieving a culture change in careers provision, released in June last year, the NCC made seven recommendations about improvements to the National Careers Service.

More needs to be done for young people and to help schools who whilst they have statutory duty are often unsure what do to and need some support in this period of transition.

In an interim report published six months on, the NCC has used a traffic light system to rate progress made based on its recommendations, and its chair, Deirdre Hughes, has written to colleagues across the sector about the issues highlighted.

She said: “We remain fully committed to achieving an all-age careers service that needs to do more with schools in recognition that careers provision needs to be improved.”
She added: “There are however two areas that concern us. The National Careers Service would benefit from having an employer-led advisory board, small in size but big in ideas for added value, reach and impact.

“More needs to be done for young people and to help schools who whilst they have statutory duty are often unsure what do to and need some support in this period of transition.

“I trust you and your colleagues will work with the National Careers Council to ensure the necessary ‘culture change in careers provision’ can be achieved as soon as possible.

“We will be hosting a conference in June 2014 to gather further views on progress being made.”

In the interim report, the NCC has highlighted several “red” areas, where it wants to see further improvement. It said that an impartial face-to-face careers guidance offer for schools recommended in the original report would not be available until October, and that future arrangements remained vague.

The report also said not enough had been done to meet another recommendation — that impartial careers guidance formed a part of new traineeships and the 16 to 19 study programme, and also criticised the government for not seeing training and practice-sharing among teachers and key partners as part of the careers service’s role.

But the report did highlight some positive steps taken by the government, and noted that the careers service was working more closely with the Career Development Institute to provide an online list of qualified career experts.

It also recognised that revised guidance for schools would “outline the role of intermediaries in bringing employers and educators closer together, and provide examples of initiatives like Inspiring the Future that are helping to inspire young people about the world of work”.

A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills would not comment on the individual criticisms, but said: “We value the effort the NCC is making to support the inspiration agenda and the NCS.”

The NCC report came just days before Business Secretary Vince Cable, in a speech to business leaders, claimed government efforts to boost careers guidance were being thwarted by teachers’ lack of knowledge about vocational education.

“There has been an argument in government about how to get the right careers advice in schools and successive governments have frankly messed this up,” he said.

“But the underlying problem is, of course, that most teachers, particularly in the secondary sector, are graduates.

“They know how universities work, they know what you have to do to get an A-level, they know about UCAS forms — but they know absolutely nothing about the world of work.

“They don’t know how to direct people to apprenticeships or traineeships, which we’re now doing as a first stage for people.”