Building a good reputation for work experience

After FE Week revealed last week that Kwik Fit was looking to take on unpaid trainees for up to five months, Stephen Gardner explains why national standards to safeguard learners are needed.

With study programmes, traineeships and many local initiatives aimed at helping unemployed people into paid employment, this will become an increasingly important debate in the coming years.

The question has no simple answer, but I am very clear — well organised, supportive work experience provides an invaluable opportunity and we need many more employers to offer it.

Work experience should be voluntary — an individual willingly participating with the aim of finding out what it is actually like to work in a potential career.

It should be well chosen, providing experience in a job role and sector of interest to that individual.

It should be well-planned, allowing the individual to gain usable skills and an insight into possible futures from those already in employment.

It must involve learning — techniques, skills and behaviours that will really help them secure employment.

There should be a fair financial arrangement between the funded organisation and the individual”

And it must involve fair and honest feedback — a realistic appraisal of the skills the individual has and does not have, letting them know what they need to do to find employment in their chosen field.

These criteria must be built into all work experience.

There should also be a fair financial arrangement between the funded organisation and the individual.

This will vary from case-to-case but in the recent Kwik Fit example, where the employer is funded by the government, I would expect a fair arrangement to see the employer pass on some of the funds to the individual through expenses or a bursary.

This would be a fair sharing of the commitment, costs and funds involved.

Where providers receive the funds, I would expect providers to allocate funds for the individual’s expenses and possibly offset employers’ set-up costs.

So why should employers get involved? Isn’t the recent hiatus surrounding “workfare” a good reason not to offer unpaid work experience?

I strongly disagree with this argument, but only if we are talking about a fair, good quality experience.

Fundamentally, work experience must involve some “productive” work, but in a good quality experience the main focus should be learning.

The time spent by existing employees organising the placement, supporting the individual feedback and giving feedback to the individual and the provider will vastly exceed any economic benefit.

Ideally, employers will consider work experience as the early stages of recruitment — this is what the individual participating and the government hopes.

Employers with an apprenticeship scheme may consider work experience an extended interview, much like the unfortunately misnamed programme “The Apprentice”.

Many though, will offer work experience because they genuinely want to help.

Let’s not forget that “employers” are made up of individuals, many of whom got their first chance through work experience.

If there are to be enough placements, employers need to be assured they can offer work experience without adversely affecting their business through cost or loss of reputation.

Providing work experience must be straightforward and easy to put in place.

Recent clarifications on health and safety and insurance requirements are welcome and providers have a role in helping employers implement a good quality programme.

The biggest hurdle is to establish a good reputation for work experience.

The new national standards for work experience will help, by defining good quality work experience that helps individuals find paid employment, accrediting only providers and employers who offer this, and providing a means for young people to complain where standards are not met.

They have the potential to ensure work experience is an invaluable opportunity and not exploitation.

 

Stephen Gardner, chief executive, Fair Train

 

 

Margaret Sharp, Lib Dem education spokesperson, House of Lords

There can’t be many places better than the House of Lords to hold an interview.

Lady Sharp and I talk beneath paintings of seminal battles and her knowledge of our surroundings shows she is an academic through-and-through.

A Cambridge economics graduate, who has penned papers in science and technology and is fluent in French, the Liberal Democrat has a passion for many things.

Our conversation sweeps from Keynesian economics to the lack of political action on global warming, but the 74-year-old is also a champion for FE.

“Remarkably few people know anything about FE in the House of Lords,” says the life peer, who worked closely with former Tory skills John Hayes from 2010 on remodelling FE colleges’ relationship with their local communities.

“I became very aware of Britain’s skills deficit but the problem was the curriculum we served-up which put many off education.

“I think the school curriculum, adapted basically from the grammar school curriculum, is really only suitable for 50 per cent,  but in FE colleges, learners suddenly discovered there were things they could do well and got pleasure from doing. I will always champion that.”

As the leader of a policy group which produced the paper Quality, Diversity and Choice, she was widely attributed as masterminding the Liberal Democrats’ rejection of top-up fees for universities. This has since become party policy and contributed to the party’s success in taking a number of university seats at the 2005 general election.

Few people know anything about FE in the House of Lords”

But she admits her ideas have “not got anywhere”.

As well as campaigning against top-up fees, she tried to introduce a graduate tax, but says: “I failed to convince even my own party on the matter.”

Nevertheless, her resolve to push for state-funded education continues.

She says she feels most passionately about trying to maintain the adult skills’ budget and getting rid of 24-plus advanced learning loans, introduced in April.

Lady Sharp (inset) reading a story to her daughters, Helen (left) and Elizabeth, in 1970

“I think FE loans will be a disaster, especially for access courses,” says Lady Sharp, who lives in Guildford.

“We need to encourage, not discourage, older people to reskill and upgrade.”

She admits even during her schooldays she could see how different types of education affected those around her.

Her family finally settled in Tonbridge, Kent, in the 1950s, after years on the move due to her father’s war-time posting in the Royal Air Force. What left its imprint on her was a judgemental society.

“With four children, there was no question of going to private school,” says Lady Sharp, who attended Tonbridge Grammar School.

“If you’d gone to the public school, you were socially accepted in Tonbridge and if you hadn’t, you weren’t to some extent. It was this atmosphere of social divisiveness I didn’t like.

“I was very proud of the schools I’d gone to and I had much more sympathy with the Labour Party.”

She carried that feeling to Newnham College, at Cambridge University, where she had a place as one of 1,000 women among 10,000 men.

“I took everyone by surprise getting into Cambridge and remember feeling very worried it would be full of vastly superior public school people, but actually there were many people just like me,” she says.

“This was 1957 and I was in an all-women’s college. There was a curfew, but it was great fun and one was much sought after as a woman. The social opportunities were endless, but it could be awkward climbing through windows if you arrived after the curfew.”

It was during these years that she first joined the Labour Party, but admits she was “rather intimidated” by the socialism of the club.

After graduating, she completed her civil service exams and worked on the board of trade dealing with overseas territories and it was here she met her husband of 60 years, Tom.

When the couple returned from America, where Tom was posted as a diplomat, and she took a guest fellowship researching state education at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, she decided to change tack and joined the Social Democrat Party (SDP).

“When I came back home [in the late 1970s] Britain was in economic trouble and the Labour Party had gone loony left in my mind,” recalls the economist, who years earlier had become a lecturer in the subject at the London School of Economics, after the birth of her daughters, Helen and Elizabeth.

“I found the party ran their meetings late in the evening and told members how they would vote. It was Bolshevik-style politics and everyone wanted to nationalise absolutely everything. What I was looking for was what Germany had  a social democratic party – so I joined the SDP.”

It was those years across the pond, carrying out the duties of a diplomat’s wife, that she first discovered she could influence people.

“I did a lot of entertaining — dinner parties with between 10 and 35 guests every week,” she says.

“Tom’s job was to get to know the Americans, sorting out issues such as getting rights for Concorde to fly.

“I soon learned I could inspire people and ended up as chair of a sixth form council. They were quite happy with me, a temporary alien in their society.”

When she returned home, she was selected to stand in Guildford by the SDP in the 1983 general election and fought three further elections.

She was the first woman the party had ever selected.

When I ask what they saw in her, she answers quite frankly: “Let’s face it; I’d lectured; I’d run voluntary organisations; written papers for cabinet ministers. I was prepared to put in the leg work — I was a very good candidate.”

But it wasn’t long before she decided the party was “all chiefs and no Indians, with no-one willing to go out on the doorsteps”, so she moved to the Liberal Democrats, gradually squeezing a 20,000 majority down to 4,500, preparing the way for Liberal Democrat Sue Doughty’s victory in 2001.

On the national scene, with her new party, she played an active part in policy making, and for several years was vice-chair to Paddy Ashdown on the party’s main policy committee.

Since the early 1980s, Lady Sharp has also worked with the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex, helping with the early development of biotechnology and encouraging investment in science, work she says she is most proud of.

Being made a life peer in 1998 was something she says she relishes, but “never expected”.

“I think the Lords makes a good contribution,” she says.

“In the Commons, very few amendments get through because the whips are so strong. Because there’s no controls in the Lords, the procedures are more democratic.”

You can see how Lady Sharp engaged her first audiences around those dinner party tables in America all those years ago.

She takes me on my own whistle-stop tour around the Lords, stopping at the Royal Gallery and Robing Room, talking through the history of every feature.

She even invites me back for scones and tea.

 

It’s a personal thing

What’s your favourite book?

The Unbound Prometheus, by David Landes

What did you want to be when you were younger?

A farmer

If you could invite anyone to a dinner party, living or dead, who would it be?

Tony Judd [philosopher and writer], Barack and Michelle Obama

What do you do to switch off from work?

I love to potter around the house, cooking and gardening

What is your pet hate?

Incompetence, especially on huge issues such as climate change, where the world has known about it for such a long time and done absolutely nothing

 

Charge for 16 to 18 training not ruled out

Skills Minister Matthew Hancock (pictured, right) has refused to rule out the possibility that employers may have to pay towards the cost of training for 16 to 18-year-old apprentices.

In a webinar from the Department for Education, and in partnership with FE Week, the minister spoke to an online audience of around 500 about the government’s consultation on funding reforms for apprenticeships.

We are looking at the whole system from 16 up — we are not ruling it [mandatory employer cash contributions] in or out.

The consultation, launched in July by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, proposes three potential funding models — each of which would result in employers paying towards 16 to 18 apprentice training. At the moment this is entirely funded by the government.

Mr Hancock said: “Apprenticeships are an all-age programme. So the consultation document was written as an all-age programme.

“We are looking at the whole system from 16 up — we are not ruling it [mandatory employer cash contributions] in or out.

“The big picture question is how we fund apprenticeships in the future and apprenticeships are from 16 upwards. That’s the reason the consultation asks the question.”

The webinar, Mr Hancock’s third with FE Week, took place on Thursday, September 26. It was presented by FE Week editor Nick Linford (pictured, left), who interviewed the minister for nearly half an hour, covering the issue of apprenticeship funding reform.

The first reform proposal within the consultation is for a direct payment model to the employer and the second is for a system where government funding is recovered through the PAYE system by the employer.

Under the third model, government funding would continue to be paid to training providers.

All three proposals include an employer cash contribution, who would also negotiate the price of training with the provider.

Stewart Segal, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, following the minister in the webinar, said: “This [cash contributions for 16-18 apprenticeships] is probably the most central area of concern in the whole system.

“I was hoping that because of the lack of detail provided, they would leave this out. I’m not sure the minister made it clear this was something they were considering.”

Mr Segal added he thought the idea of asking employers to contribute towards 16 to 18 apprenticeship costs was “crazy”.

During the hour long webinar, Mr Segal also provided the preliminary results of an association survey on the reform proposals.

He said that, as of September 6, the survey indicated 73 per cent of respondents did not think any of the three options would improve the funding system. Meanwhile, 68 per cent of employers’ responses showed they did not think any of the three options would improve the funding system.

However, if one option had to be chosen, 87 per cent would go for the third option, 11 per cent opted for option two and only three per cent went for the first option.

Among employers, 81 per cent of those who responded said they would choose option three.

The ten-week government consultation ends on October 1.

To listen to the audio record from the webinar click here.

Miliband sent ‘back to drawing board’

Labour leader Ed Miliband has been told to “go back to the drawing board” with his plans to create 125,000 apprentices.

The proposals — in which companies would be forced to train a “local” apprentice for every foreign worker they take on — were branded “illegal” by Skills Minister Matthew Hancock, who further questioned Labour’s claims the apprenticeships wouldn’t cost the taxpayer a penny.

Any firm that wants to bring in a foreign worker must also train up someone who’s a local worker’ — Ed Miliband

He told FE Week: “Apprenticeships are hugely valuable in their own right and a partnership between employer, apprentice, and government — it’s back to the drawing board I think.”

The government on average pays around £2,000 per apprentice, to cover the cost of the college or other training provider delivering the formal vocational learning.

Under normal circumstances, the government would therefore have to fork out £250m for the 125,000 apprentices in Labour’s proposal.

Mr Miliband unveiled the radical policy during a walkabout in Brighton, ahead of his party’s conference.

And a spokesperson for the party’s shadow home affairs team later claimed the entire cost would be covered by employers.

“The companies themselves will be required to provide the apprenticeships, so [there will be] no additional cost to the government,” he told FE Week.

“We consider that it is incorrect to say it would have to be government-funded to be considered an apprenticeship.”

But Mr Hancock said Labour was wrong and there was always a cost to the government for apprenticeships.

“It seems like Labour don’t understand the basics of how apprenticeships work,” he said.

Mr Miliband first explained the details of the policy to the Sunday Mirror, on September 22.

He said: “We’re going to say to any firm that wants to bring in a foreign worker that they also have to train up someone who’s a local worker, training up the next generation.

“We think that can create up to 125,000 new apprenticeships over the course of five years. That is a massive boost in skills for our young people and that is really important.”

The statement appeared to suggest firms with more than 50 employees would be forced to take on British-only apprentices.

However, Mr Hancock poured scorn on Mr Miliband’s plans that afternoon via Twitter, claiming efforts to limit apprentices to the UK would break European law.

He expanded on the point during a debate on FE, hosted by FE Week, at the Labour conference.

Mr Hancock claimed the policy was an “unworkable gimmick” and said: “With regards to this idea for every non-EU migrant a company employs, they should employ a British apprentice, that didn’t sounds like it fitted with European Union law to me, so I sought legal advice.

“The government legal advice was very clear — that it is illegal under European Union law.”

Labour then appeared to alter its stance over the course of the week.

The party’s shadow home affairs team claimed on Wednesday that Mr Miliband actually meant companies could employ an apprentice from any European Union country.

He said: “In accordance with existing practice, we have never intended to limit apprenticeships to UK nationals.

“But the evidence shows 92 per cent of existing apprenticeships in the UK are taken up by UK nationals and an even higher percentage by locals.

“Exactly the same will apply to these new apprenticeships and it’s extraordinary the Tories have set their hearts against additional apprenticeships at a time when a million young people are out of work.”

————————————————————————————————————–

Editorial : Buy one foreign worker, get an apprenticeship (not for) free

It’s right to look for policies that might increase apprentice numbers.

But employers should be looking to take apprentices on because they see the value in doing so.

Forcing firms to take on an apprentice and to pay their wages and also training costs is the wrong way to do it.

How would you feel if your boss only took you on because they had to?

I would be worried about my long term employment prospects.

I would also have grave doubts about the amount of time and money that was going to be invested in my training.

And, of course, this policy proposal is wrapped up in anti-immigration rhetoric with the new apprentice getting a job simply because their boss had taken on someone from outside the EU.

It’s a shame Labour decided to saddle the future of apprenticeships with such a divisive policy when the guiding ethos of FE has always been one of inclusion.

All in all this seems to be a bad idea.

Bad for employers, employees and FE.

Nick Linford, editor

24+ loan applications up 46 per cent a-month

Nearly 16,000 people applied for the 24+ Advanced Learning Loan in August, up 46 per cent on the number of applications made in the previous month (10,772).

Data Service figures further revealed just under half of the 34,700 loans applications since the programme launched in April were submitted in last month alone (15,725).

Boston College funding and registry data manager Fiona Wrisberg (pictured) said: “The student response and uptake has been positive — it’s been far better than we thought.”

This is something the country simply cannot afford to ignore.”

The 24+ Advanced Learner Loan system was proposed in the government’s 2011 report New Challenges, New Chances.

Before the system’s introduction, the government subsidised 50 per cent of the cost of adult courses, with learners paying the rest upfront. Now, learners aged 24 or over can pay for a level three or four course with a loan, repaid when they are earning more than £21,000.

Loans for access to higher education courses do not have to be repaid if the student progresses to university, which Ms Wrisberg (pictured) said may explain the loans’ positive reception.
“I think it’s actually encouraged people to come and do the qualification, particularly for access,” said Ms Wrisberg.

Of the 15,725 loan applications in August, 37 per cent (5,812) were for access to higher education courses. It brings the total number of such loans applied for up to 14,720 — 42 per cent of all loans.

Association of Colleges assistant chief executive Julian Gravatt said: “Colleges have worked hard to ensure people know the strengths and weaknesses of the loans. Some 35,000 applicants is a sign these efforts have worked in some areas but there are some shortfalls.”

Just 77 loans for apprenticeships have been applied for since the scheme began — 52 in August. The figures are dramatically below government forecasts, in which around 25,000 applications for apprenticeship loans were expected this academic year.

During an FE Week webinar on Thursday (September 26), Skills Minister Matthew Hancock said: “Apprenticeships, as opposed to other vocational training are less tied to the September year… I will keep my eye on it.” Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive Stewart Segal (pictured) said the apprenticeship figures were “no surprise”, but called on the government to investigate.

“Apprenticeships are different… therefore the purpose of loans does not fit the whole structure,” he said. “It’s damaging the apprenticeship system… just as we begin to create creditability we are losing it at the top end.”

David Hughes, chief executive of the National Institute for Adult Continuing Education, said the loans system was “broken” for apprenticeships. He suggested writing off loans for students who went on to higher apprenticeships, as with access courses.

“We have been concerned about how loans would work in financing apprenticeships and have repeatedly called for government to take specific action to ensure advanced and higher apprenticeships remain a viable option for adults aged 24 and over,” he said.

“This is something the country simply cannot afford to ignore.”

Mixed welcome for older apprenticeships ‘policy shift’

An apparent shift in FE funding policy that could see a rise in the number of 24+ apprentices has received a mixed welcome.

In March last year the agency said, in its 2012/13 final allocations methodology briefing note, that it would “not award any growth” for older apprenticeships.

But an agency spokesperson confirmed to FE Week that it was now “accepting” providers’ requests for more money to deliver apprenticeships for 24+ learners.

However, a spokesperson for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) denied there had been a change in funding policy, saying apprenticeships “remain an all-age programme”.

The risk, given we’re in a world of limited funding, is that if there is more money available for older apprentices, then there will be less available for younger people.

Nevertheless, the apparent shift to accept older apprenticeship funding requests was welcomed by Unionlearn, the education arm of the TUC, but its spokesperson added: “We are concerned that many current apprenticeships for adults are little more than accreditation of the work they are currently doing and contain little in the way of progression.”

Just five months ago Business Secretary Vince Cable (pictured) wrote to the agency explaining how he wanted younger apprentice numbers boosted. He did the same last year.

But three weeks after his most recent letter, the agency said its priority was funding apprenticeships at all ages — and it has now produced a new form in which extra cash for 24+ apprenticeships can be requested.

The BIS spokesperson told FE Week: “As a result of simplifying the funding system across FE we have introduced greater freedoms and flexibilities for colleges and providers.

“This will put them in a better position to respond to the needs of learners, employers and communities to whom they are becoming increasingly accountable.”

The agency invites providers at the end of quarters one, two and three to ask for additional funding for their programmes.

The ‘additional’ funding is cash allocated to independent learning providers that hasn’t been spent and so is moved around the wider FE and skills system, including colleges, to meet demand.

Julian Gravatt, assistant chief executive at the Association of Colleges, said: “We won’t know for a few weeks whether there is any money available to meet these requests but it is sensible for the agency to standardise and formalise this process.”

Stewart Segal, Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said: “We support the need to respond to all age growth in the programme, but we assume that business cases where additional 16 to 24 apprenticeship starts are planned will get first priority.”

In June, FE Week reported on fears at the Department for Education that 16 to 18-year-olds were being squeezed out of potential apprenticeships by “competition” from older applicants.

And in July, FE Week reported how the number of 16 to 18 apprenticeship starts was falling against the backdrop of a boom in the overall numbers — from 457,200 in 2010/11 to 520,600 last academic year.

Tony Dolphin (Pictured), chief economist at the Institute for Public Policy Research, said: “This government — as did the previous one — is making a lot about big increases in overall apprenticeship numbers, but the group for which apprenticeships really should apply is seeing numbers falling.”

He added: “The risk, given we’re in a world of limited funding, is that if there is more money available for older apprentices, then there will be less available for younger people.

“It’s a weakness of the vocational education and training system in general that the government sets targets for the numbers of qualifications and asks these quangos to deliver those targets and the targets then go to providers to find ways of delivering them.”

The wait for an outstanding indy goes on

After 131 Ofsted visits, independent learning providers (ILPs) are still waiting for their first outstanding verdict under the education watchdog’s current common inspection framework.

The sector has failed to achieve a single grade one result since the start of the last academic year, when the new framework was put in place.

But across the wider FE and skills sector up to July — from more than 320 inspections — there were 10 outstanding results under the new framework, including two for general FE colleges and two for sixth form colleges.

The last ILP to achieve a grade one was Hillingdon Training Limited, in Ruislip, Greater London, in October last year, when it had around 430 learners.

It had been inspected under the previous framework, introduced in September 2009 and under which there had been 21 ILPs graded as outstanding.

Stewart Segal, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said: “The new inspection framework is only a year old and providers need time to work with Ofsted to understand the standards and deliver the service to customers that meets those standards.”

He added: “Teaching, learning and assessment is a key part of the new framework and it is important that providers are able to demonstrate good practice when delivering in the wide variety of work-based locations.”

Under the current framework, Ofsted inspectors have dished out a dozen inadequate ratings to ILPs, the most recent of which came for Bury-based Training For Travel on September 20. It was the first and, as of Wednesday morning (September 25), only inspection result for the sector this academic year.

The 2,000-learner provider also got grade four results in each of the headline inspections fields having earned a grade three result following its last inspection, in December 2009.

Its chief operating officer, Beverley Platt, said she was considering an appeal against the grade four result, but declined to comment further.

Meanwhile, under the current inspection framework, there have also been 54 grade three, or requires improvement, judgments against ILPs along with 65 at grade two, or good.

But with around two months to go before Ofsted boss Sir Michael Wilshaw’s annual report comes out, many in the sector will be hoping for a grade one result soon having seen colleges come under heavy fire in last year’s report. The chief inspector said government needed to “shine a spotlight” on the FE sector, pointing to a threefold increase in the number of colleges graded as inadequate — from four in 2010/11 to 13 the following year.

Nevertheless, Mr Segal remained upbeat about the ILPs and said the association was looking to run a pilot course aimed at improvement.

“Despite the newness of the framework, it looks as if more than 30 per cent of providers have improved their grades and only 16 per cent have had worse grades,” he said.

“As always, any provider getting worse grades is one too many.”

He added: “We are currently working on a programme that builds the capacity to improve in the sector.

“We hope to run a pilot programme with providers that need to improve by the end of the year.”

An Ofsted spokesperson confirmed there had been no ILPs graded as outstanding under the new inspection framework.

However, she said Ofsted would not comment on the sector ahead of the annual report’s publication.

Labour conference fringe event

Download your free copy of the FE Week 16-page Labour conference fringe event supplement on the future of apprenticeships, in partnership with Pearson.

Click here to download (15mb)

Introduction

Welcome to this FE Week supplement on the Labour Party conference fringe, where FE Week ran its own event.

This was our first foray into the world of party conferences and frankly, we loved it.

This begs the question ‘Why didn’t we do all three conferences?’ and there’s a whole host of answers we could give you, but at some point we have to put our cards on the table and admit that we were too late in applying for the Conservative and Liberal Democrat conferences to secure a place at their fringe.

But with a bit of planning, we’re looking forward to bringing you all the action from all three party conferences next spring.

At this year’s autumn Labour conference, we were right at the heart of the action, and our own fringe event, The Future of Apprenticeships, was described as “unusual” by the BBC News at Ten as, thanks to technology, we were able to bring an unexpected guest with us.

As we were watching Shadow Education Secretary Stephen Twigg’s speech, a few hours before our event, we noticed Conservative Skills Minister Matthew Hancock MP had tweeted to say he had consulted government lawyers on Labour’s new flagship policy.

The lawyers, according to Mr Hancock, had declared the policy, where companies would have to employ one British apprentice for every non-EU worker they took on, to be illegal.

We knew this was too good an opportunity to pass up, and so invited Mr Hancock along to our event to explain in more detail — via Skype, of course. And, since we’re not known for being shy, we tipped off the BBC on the way.

Something we are known for, however, is enjoying an #FEparty, and this event was no exception, with fun, puns, bunting and mountains of popcorn.

The stellar line-up of big FE names included Shadow Ministers Tristram Hunt and Gordon Marsden, IfL chief executive Toni Fazaeli and Niace chief executive David Hughes.

There was also AoC chief executive Martin Doel, NUS vice president for FE Joe Vinson, UCU president-elect John McCormack and chair of South East Midlands Local Enterprise Partnership Dr Ann Limb.

Despite the fun, it was also a chance for these big names, along with the Skills Minister via Skype, to discuss the serious issues facing apprenticeships, and ultimately the whole UK economy.

One of the conference’s most headline-grabbing announcements was the apprenticeship policy and you can read about that in more detail on page 3, along with the results of our fringe poll. Is £2.68 a fair or unfair training wage?

The Labour Party’s skills taskforce, chaired by Professor Chris Husbands, published its report, A revolution in apprenticeships: a something-for-something deal with employers, and the radical proposals it lays out are covered on page 4.

Commentary on the report from Steve Besley, head of policy at Pearson, and senior skills policy manager at the AoC Teresa Frith follows on page 5. Coverage of our fringe event, with the views, ideas and arguments from all of our illustrious panellists starts on page 6 and continues onto page 11.

Then if you feel you’d like to know a little bit more about the people behind the policy, you can turn to pages 12 and 13 for our profiles of two of the key figures in Labour’s skills team, shadow ministers Tristram Hunt and Gordon Marsden.

Finally it’s back to the fun, joining roving reporter Shane Mann on pages 14 and 15 on his mission to introduce FE Week to a whole new readership and meet as many Labour party celebrities as possible.

So that’s the conference party debates over for us until the spring, but don’t forget you can join in the ongoing debate about skills policy on twitter with our @FEWeek Twitter handle.

New social partnership needed for apprentices

Wider agreement between the Government, employers, learners and learning providers is needed to ensure apprenticeships set people up for long and fulfilling careers, explains David Hughes from the Labour Party Conference.

We all know apprentices are a good thing, don’t we?

Sitting on the panel at the FE Week fringe event last night on the future of apprentices was an interesting experience.

The panel included two Labour shadow ministers, as well as the Coalition’s Skills Minister, beamed in via Skype.

In many ways, you could hardly hold a cigarette paper between any of them, or any of the other panellists, in terms of what they thought about the apprenticeship programme.

The consensus that apprentices are a good thing flows through into policies, which are very similar.

The hope is there may be some much-needed stability over the coming years. Another area of all-round agreement between the panellists was the need to end the myriad of changes to the apprenticeships (and skills) programme, which have rained down from above over the past decade or more.

The Labour Party Skills Task Force published its report on apprenticeships yesterday: A revolution in apprenticeships: A something for something deal with employers.

Among many ideas for policy, a few stand out.

The headline will probably be the move to a new gold standard, with level two apprenticeships being replaced by a new and improved traineeship.

This means the term apprentice will only apply at level three and above.

I support this, with a number of caveats. Within this change, we must ensure we do not disenfranchise learners at level two.

Changing the definition of apprentice to level three and above is not enough.

What is needed is a wider definition, which describes the quality of the experience and the outcomes better.

That definition needs to be negotiated with and agreed by the apprentices themselves, along with employee and learner representatives including the unions.

Of utmost importance is that apprenticeships are open to everyone.

They should be for anyone, regardless of their age or occupation.

It is also essential we see more employers taking on apprentices from a black or minority ethnic background, or who have a learning difficulty or disability.

We are hoping the new Equality and Diversity Innovation Fund will help address this balance.

An apprenticeship should be about acquiring the transferable skills needed, not simply for a job, but for a lasting and fulfilling career.

What I would also like to see is a definition of quality which describes the learning experience.

This would include the breadth of exposure the apprentices have to the company they are working for, the support and mentoring they will receive, the relevance of the qualification and the number of hours of off-the-job training and on-the-job training.

Also, the progression opportunities at the end of the apprenticeship and the chances of getting a permanent job at the end.

More than anything, I would like to see a quality charter or guarantee that apprentices will always be supported for their career, not just the job they are in today.

This Quality Charter has to be developed with apprentices and written from their perspective, but must be agreed by the kind of social partnership we sorely lack in England.

A new social partnership, between the Government, employers, learners and providers will ensure a long-term vision for the apprenticeship programme.

The Husband Report hints at this social partnership and acknowledges the need for a stronger apprenticeship voice, but it isn’t bold enough.

The tension between what the apprentice wants and what the employer wants in the short-term must be exposed.

Good employers want staff who can carry on developing and good employees want to progress and earn more.

That is a virtuous circle of wants which we should focus more on.

The consensus on the value of apprentices can be a good thing if we are bold in our partnership approach.

I think we are nearly there, but one big collective push is needed.

 

David Hughes, chief executive of the National Institute for Adult Continuing Education and interim chair of the Education and Training Foundation