The government’s announcement that 19 to 24-year-olds will, along with 16 to 18-year-olds, be able to do traineeships has boosted hopes of tackling youth unemployment, says Stewart Segal

Let’s be clear first that traineeships represent a major opportunity to tackle the NEET issue.

The Spending Review announcement that from August 2013, the programme will cover 16 to 24-year-olds is excellent news.

We may be disappointed that from the onset at least, the Ofsted grade requirements may be unnecessarily restricting the provider supply base. And judging by the size of the 2013-14 contract allocations for independent providers, only a limited number of young people are going to benefit to begin with.

But we have to start from somewhere and recognise that we are operating in the toughest spending round in 30 years. It is the potential of traineeships to make a major difference over the longer term which we should welcome.

For the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), the key win in the programme’s design is the flexibility that it gives to providers.

They can give the individual a personalised programme of training and work experience based on the young person’s real, identified needs and make the person attractive to employers.

This approach will help to secure young people either a place on an apprenticeship or a job where they should receive some form of further training.

Using Ofsted grades alone for provider eligibility is not the best measure”

Apprenticeships are the optimum outcome, but all job outcomes should be regarded as good.

At the recent AELP national conference, one of our North West members reported that his young clients want a job above all else and therefore it is pleasing that traineeships will give them the opportunity to secure one. The new programme adopts many of the principles we have supported: flexible structure (ie the ‘black box’ approach); firmly focused on work; mix of work skills and work experience; and key skills such as English and maths. For it to succeed, it must be based on good initial assessment, flexible support for learners and a focus on outcomes.

The announced extension of the traineeship programme to age 24 will ensure a sufficient scale and profile to address the big issue of youth unemployment.

The extension should bring in many more work-based learning providers able to engage with enough employers who are willing to offer work experience to young people. The adding of the 19 to 24 cohort means that many apprenticeship providers and with them their very large employer client base should now be able to offer support.

We recognise the programme should be of high quality, but using Ofsted grades alone for provider eligibility is not the best measure. We are happy to work with the Education Funding Agency and the Skills Funding Agency to look at ways to widen the delivery while maintaining high quality.

Otherwise we are excluding employers who have good working relationships with providers that are restricted from delivering the programme. The other significant downside of the current restrictions is that they are encouraging more subcontracting than is necessary.

Our proposal is to maintain the Ofsted grade one and two as a first threshold, but for grade three providers to have a wider set of benchmarks to provide the evidence that they can deliver a high quality programme.  Some examples of this evidence might be Ofsted grade one or two for this specific area of work, excellent success rates, and evidence of good delivery of Department of Work and Pensions programmes. Once approved, a grade three provider might also expect a more regular scrutiny of their outcomes.

Our member providers already engage with 638,000 employers on apprenticeships and other skills programmes. We believe that by working closely with the government to improve on the solid foundations already laid, a wide range of sectors and a high number of small and medium-sized enterprises can become involved in traineeships. We must grasp the opportunity.

Stewart Segal, Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive

While providers gear up for the challenge of delivering traineeships, Ofsted has been looking at how to assess the scheme. Matthew Coffey explains what the education watchdog wants to see in action.

We’re all too familiar with the young person who, for whatever reasons, hasn’t excelled at school and runs the risk of joining the NEET ranks all too soon.

As we know, leaving education and training without qualifications and employability skills can lead such young people down a dead end.

So in light of this, I welcome the introduction of the new traineeships being rolled out in August.

These will also be particularly pertinent as we come up to the raising of the participation age to 17 in September.

A national priority for me is improving inspection grades relating to vocational training and the take-up of vocational qualifications.

And we will be grading traineeships when seen on inspection once the scheme is launched.

We’ll be looking for robust data from providers to demonstrate the impact of what they’re doing.

Our priorities reflect our aspirations for learners. It can’t be right that more than one million young people are unemployed. I would expect traineeships to offer a package of skills that helps young people move into apprenticeships.

We’ll be examining whether the calibre of apprenticeships has improved as a result of traineeships”

And Ofsted is very supportive of the proposals for traineeships, including the core elements of the programme.

Providing people with the basic skills to gain fruitful employment is critical. Effective induction, the flexibility to tailor each of the core elements to meet individual needs, ensuring quality, and effectively involving employers, including SMEs, will be essential to the success of the programme. Gaining a mix of employability skills and work experience will be critical to a young person’s success in finding and keeping work.

We know from our report apprenticeships for young people that providers and employers feel the most important attributes of a potential apprentice are the right attitude and commitment to employment. Many had negative views about the ability of some young people to apply for jobs; the poor standard of English and maths and weak punctuality and timekeeping. However, we found that good support was a common key factor in effectively engaging young people.

Employers are struggling to recruit to skilled and semi-skilled vacancies across the country. And our report Ensuring quality in apprenticeships found that just over a third of 500 apprentices didn’t consider themselves to be holding a permanent job during their apprenticeships.

No one can afford to take a disillusioned approach to this new scheme. This is a golden opportunity to improve the life chances of many young people. But we must also be realistic.

Industry needs to have confidence in the people coming out of traineeships and into apprenticeships. What Ofsted looks for in good quality apprenticeships we will also be looking for in traineeships. We’ll be asking to what extent are people being prepared for apprenticeships and employment. Have they had the opportunity to experience work, develop skills and understand the industry they want to work in?

We’ll be examining whether the calibre of apprenticeships has improved as a result of traineeships. And we’ll be looking for creative programmes that provide young people with the skills they require.

Traineeships are a means to an end, not an end in themselves. We’ll want to see how providers invest in those with learning difficulties; supporting them into employment and demonstrating their ability to hold down a job.

Ofsted’s spotlight will be on how many of those on traineeships are successfully moving on to apprenticeships. The challenge for providers and employers will be how to track and evaluate those on traineeships into apprenticeships and beyond.

For the scheme to be successful it will need to demonstrate impact and results. Those young people moving into apprenticeships need to be as successful as the rest; if not more so. If our inspection results can confirm this, then we will have a very effective means of improving life prospects for many.

Matthew Coffey, Ofsted director of learning and skills

Are colleges ready for traineeships?  Yes, says Lynne Sedgmore, but there are still areas to consider.

We all accept that the notion of traineeships is a good idea for many young people.

In the post-Richard world of work-based education and training, and as the apprenticeship concept is being properly redefined, for many, the traineeship is simply a way to re-badge what was previously known as a pre-apprenticeship programme. But the expectations are that it will be much more than that.

Traineeships benefit from having much in common with their older sister, the study programme.

Across the country, colleges are training and preparing staff, engaging in new relationships and refocusing their timetables to bring maths and English to the forefront of students’ learning. Trainees will benefit from this as much as everybody else.

And an army of staff is engaging with employers to develop further the commendable existing relationships to secure meaningful work experience. So, the building blocks of traineeships are most certainly in place already.

However, as is so often the case, the reality of ‘readiness’ depends upon some of the bigger picture issues, and, in this respect, traineeships are no different to many of the other new policy developments that colleges will be grappling with this autumn.

We are told that funding requirements have been relaxed and that requirements for assessment will be flexible, but, of course, we have yet to see what that looks like in practice. As with study programmes, it is worth considering whether arguments will ensue about the elements that are judged most appropriate for any given individual, or whether freedom really does mean genuine autonomy for colleges to decide. What is clear is that colleges are already investing significant time and energy into interpreting the rules that have been published.

Of greater concern is that in no less a place than the Queen’s Speech, the government publicised the view that traineeships and apprenticeships should become ‘the new norm’ for those not going to university.

Yet traineeships do not include any compulsion to engage in study towards a vocational qualification. For many in the target market, at level two and below, a vocational qualification is both achievable and appropriate as the experience of general FE colleges amply demonstrates.

Colleges are still unsure what the answer is to the question of how to support a trainee if, after six months, there is no job or apprenticeship for them to progress onto”

Moreover full-time vocational education is not only a route young people and parents understand but one which feels right to them. We would do well not to try and ‘fix’ an area of the system that isn’t broken by focusing on traineeships at the expense of everything else.

Colleges will continue to explain to young people the full range of choices available to them and continue to deliver a full range of vocational qualifications.

Employer engagement, while something we take very seriously, is well documented as complex and employers are difficult to engage. We have no barometer for how willing employers will be to work to enable traineeships at the same time as they are being exhorted to engage more with apprenticeships and adult skills provision.

And, even if they do, colleges are still unsure what the answer is to the question of how to support a trainee if, after six months, there is no job or apprenticeship for them to progress onto.

Finally, the 157 Group’s concern about the quality criteria being (inconsistently) applied to delivery is well documented. For many young people this year, a traineeship will not be a reality on the basis of geography alone. It will once again be left to colleges to deal with their disappointment and confusion.

So – how ready are we? As colleges, impressively so, if you focus on the nuts and bolts of what is undoubtedly a good idea. At a system level however more work is needed to ensure that all the elements of a world class VET system are in place.

Lynne Sedgmore, 157 Group executive director

The transition from unskilled to skilled could be key to answering the UK’s youth unemployment problem, explains Matthew Hancock

The German Chancellor Angela Merkel is by no means alone in regarding unemployment among young people as “the most pressing European problem”.

However, in Germany the rates of youth unemployment are far lower than most of its European counterparts.

One reason may be that in Germany, where the majority of teenagers either go to university or into an apprenticeship, there are far fewer unskilled young people.

We want to follow Germany’s lead and raise the importance of vocational education. So right from May 2010 onwards, the coalition has invested unprecedented effort and resources in increasing the number and quality of apprenticeships available to help set our young people on the path towards fulfilling careers.

Now, with some 1.3m new jobs having been created in the private sector over the past three years, and the latest surveys by the British Chambers of Commerce and others showing confidence returning to British business, it is no time to relax those efforts.

It is indeed the right time to redouble our efforts to ensure that as many of our young people as possible are well prepared to take advantage of the opportunities that recovery is bringing as it takes hold.

Last month, this was clearly recognised in Chancellor George Osborne’s spending review, which not only protected funding for apprenticeships, but also announced the extension of the new traineeships programme for young people aged up to 24, as well as 16 to 19-year-olds.

Traineeships are designed to give young people the skills and wherewithal to hold down an apprenticeship or a permanent job. For large numbers of our youngsters, that transition has never been easy. The Chancellor’s announcement will mean that more will be able to get practical help in overcoming it.

The key to the success of the scheme will lie in how many training providers and employers come forward”

Employers tell us that many youngsters are keen to get a foot on the employment ladder, but lack the right skills, attitudes and experience to prosper immediately in the world of work.

That is why traineeships have been designed to last up to a maximum of six months and offer young people the opportunity to undertake a substantial work placement and vocational skills training, alongside support to improve the basic skills for employment of English and maths.

Depending on the young person’s needs, a range of other support and flexible training may also be offered to help them develop and progress quickly onto an apprenticeship or into other employment.

All evidence suggests there will be substantial demand for traineeship places from motivated young people.

But the key to the success of the scheme will lie in how many training providers and employers come forward and show themselves willing to work together to offer the right kinds of opportunities.

We also need to get traineeships off to a strong start and that is why only training providers with an Ofsted rating of outstanding or good will be able to deliver them. I recognise this will be frustrating for some providers, but I am confident this approach will give them even greater incentives to improve their existing provision.

The challenge is admittedly great. The updated framework for delivering traineeships has now been published and the first learners will be admitted in August. But despite the tight timescales involved, I am confident we can rise to the challenge.

Clearly, this bodes well for all those young people who ask only to be given a chance to make good and show what they can do.

Matthew Hancock, skills minister