With the government looking at a “radical” overhaul of the way apprenticeships are funded, Neil Carberry looks at the key considerations for any such changes.

Apprenticeships are a remarkable link between our economy’s pre-industrial past and its globalised future.

In the Middle Ages they were a contract between master craftsmen and workers. Apprentices learned the expert skills and would pass on their knowledge to the next generation.

The same basic tenets are now central to how the UK creates a highly-skilled workforce fit to compete internationally in the 21st century.

The entrepreneur Doug Richard was right when he said there was “universal agreement that apprenticeships are a good thing,” in his review for the government.

But he was also spot-on in arguing we’ve drifted from their original philosophy.

Instead of employers designing relevant courses and deciding how best to deliver them, the system is weighed down with rules and regulations.

The need to get this right has never been so important.

Stop looking enviously at the gold-standard systems in countries like Germany and build our own

We’re facing critical skills gaps in sectors where we need to generate long-term growth, and without a strong base at both graduate and technician level, we will fall even further behind.

Yet interest in apprenticeships hasn’t been as high in decades.

Employers want the right attitude; practical industry experience and decent technical skills so young people are asking rightly whether university is always the best way to provide that.

Alternative routes which give them top quality training, a guaranteed job and no debt is a big carrot for firms, working in partnership with FE providers, to dangle in front of sixth formers.

So this is a watershed moment. It is time to stop looking enviously at the gold-standard systems in countries like Germany and build our own to rival theirs.

Business welcomes ministers’ backing for Mr Richard’s recommendations, but the devil will be in the detail.

Everyone agrees that employers, not bureaucrats, must be in the driving seat. So we need to overcome three tests over coming months and years to genuinely achieve this.

Firstly, we must sweep away the current labyrinthine funding system.

To drive up standards, firms must directly buy-in high-quality, relevant provision themselves, rather than grants being routed through providers, Skills Funding Agency and Higher Education Funding Council for England.

A tax credit is the best solution on paper, where firms claim back the costs of training apprenticeships through the PAYE system.

But it will need detailed piloting to ensure that it doesn’t weigh down firms in paperwork and to ‘grandfather’ existing good provision to ensure a smooth transition.

Secondly, we must make it easier for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) — the lifeblood of the economy — to take on apprentices.

Reforming funding on its own is not enough. We need to slim down inspection, assessment and compliance to common sense levels.

Too many growing firms are struggling to recruit highly-skilled staff without hollowing out their own supply chains or having talent staff poached by bigger firms further up the ladder.

So we need to get industries consolidating training budgets and expertise within their sector and region — and working providers to tailor courses for their specific needs. SMEs are a vast untapped market and we cannot afford for them to miss out.

We need radical reforms to boost the provision of alternatives to universities

And thirdly, we must better sell apprenticeships to young people at an earlier age. It does not start at 16.

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) wants much clearer routes into technical education from 14; tougher, new vocational ‘A-levels’ at 18; and, for all students to study English and maths throughout their school and college careers.

We need to tackle the perception the traditional A-level/three-year degree model is the only route to a good career.

We need radical reforms to boost the provision of alternatives to universities — in FE and in work, as well as business-backed degrees

The prize is clear — lean, competitive industries and long-term growth. This is a key moment for government, the education sector and businesses to step up to the plate.

Neil Carberry, director of employment and skills, CBI

 

Neil Carberry will be among a number of speakers at a Parliament debate on apprenticeship funding on Wednesday, September 4.

It will be hosted by Shadow Skills Minister Gordon Marsden and sponsored by Pearson.

Coverage of the debate will feature in the first edition of FE Week (dated Monday, September 9) for the new academic year.

 

The annual schoolgates spectacle that is GCSE results day usually brings with it much media interview talk of A-level plans and uni hopes, but Andy Gannon picked up on a rare, but welcome namedrop for vocational education this year.

Those of us who work in FE know the value of vocational pathways through education.

We see the success of young people, some of whom experience it in a way they never did at school, and some of whom have realised that it is just a better choice for them.

The swathe of interest in the vocational system from policymakers in recent months is also an indication of its importance.

But we also know that, for a great many people, vocational education remains a blind spot.

BBC coverage on that day only serves to illustrate just how far we have to go in promoting the benefits of vocational education

It was therefore heartening to see, on GCSE results day, both the BBC and ITV taking up the theme of progression into vocational courses as part of their coverage.

However, a snapshot of the BBC coverage on that day only serves to illustrate just how far we have to go in promoting the benefits of vocational education — or, to put it more professionally, in providing appropriate information, advice and guidance (IAG) to all young people.

I paraphrase here, but the all-important gist remains.

A remarkably well-informed reporter interviews a girl who has just got a plethora of As to Cs.

She is justifiably pleased and says she intends to do A-levels and then go to university to do ‘something sport-related’ because it is ‘not just classroom-based and is more active’.

So far, so good. Here is a young person with a clear direction (quite an achievement in itself), who understands enough about how she wants to learn to make a sensible decision about her pathway through higher education.

But the reporter challenges her. Why, if she is so clear that she wants to learn in an active way, is she doing A-levels and not taking a more vocational option now?

Her response is revealing — ‘because I want to be more educated and get a better job, and not just go straight into a job now’.

The message is clear — in order to be ‘better educated’, the only option is A-levels and, more to the point, she equates a ‘vocational option’ simply with ‘getting a job’. You wonder whether she has ever heard of full-time FE, or even apprenticeships.

And so the reporter moves to the teacher who talks about the guidance given to pupils on this important day. He rightly says individual need is paramount, and acknowledges that, for ‘some’ of the pupils (clearly, the minority), staying at school is not an option and they will find ‘alternative provision’.

 I was tempted to send in a list of local FE Colleges, as the interview left me wondering a little whether their existence was known of

The teacher then describes the ‘special programme’ being put on to ‘allow’ those with grade D or below in English and maths to stay in school for a year to retake – ‘possibly alongside an A-level or even a BTec’. In other words, the school is actively advocating that some of its pupils stick with them for one more year without the possibility of accessing the full range of vocational options and simply delaying their entry into meaningful full-time study until they are 17.

And then the crunch. Our impressive reporter asks why more of the pupils are not going on now to vocational education or apprenticeships, given that these options are so much in the public eye at a time when the country needs more skilled workers. The teacher, slightly flummoxed, refers the reporter to the school’s really good record with BTecs, which demonstrates why vocational education is very important. I was tempted to send in a list of local FE Colleges, as the interview left me wondering a little whether their existence was known of.

Of course, I don’t know the full context of the school, and I may well be doing them a disservice on the basis of a short piece of coverage. But, as a nutshell encapsulation of the distance yet to be travelled by IAG in schools, I wonder whether those who have advocated absolute school autonomy in this area read as much into this five minutes of TV as I did.

Andy Gannon, director of policy, PR and research at the 157 Group

As the government does away with the legal requirement for defined teaching qualifications in FE, Noel Johnson discusses the problems that could arise as a result.

After working so hard over the past 20 years to achieve recognised, legislated professionalism within the post-16 sector, it is disappointing (and worrying) to see government moving away from this.

I fully support the freedoms afforded to our sector through self-regulation, but the imperative for effective, professional teaching and learning must be derived from a clear, mandatory framework followed by all in the sector.

Anything less will negatively impact on future learning and our collective credibility.

Professional teaching and learning must be derived from a clear, mandatory framework followed by all

It was no accident that following the introduction of teaching professionalism in post-16 education and training in 2007, the achievement rates in all programmes under both employer responsive and learner responsive areas increased substantially.

Although I accept that this cannot be attributed solely to the introduction of professional teaching standards, they have played a significant role in increasing post-16 achievement rates, and learner interest, in post-compulsory learning.

I, like many others, have for a long time lobbied for self-regulation and I believe that as a sector we do better understand the needs of our customers, as well as the priorities of our localities, and this has been afforded us through the freedom to manage our contracts, and importantly, our funding.

I do not however, believe that by removing the requirement for legislated professionalism in teaching and learning practice, we will see a continued, disciplined, uniformed, maintenance of these standards within our sector.

As post-16 learning providers, we have, and continue to follow the requirements of the Common Inspection Framework (CIF), regulated through, and inspected by, Ofsted.

This is clearly an essential part of maintaining standards in teaching and learning with heightened importance following the introduction of self-regulation, but we are seeing a clear contradiction in the governments’ direction of travel in relation to teaching.

Within the Common Inspection Framework (CIF) and through Ofsted inspections, the emphasis is clearly targeted on the quality and effectiveness of teaching and learning, and the maintenance of good teaching can only be achieved through effective teaching qualifications.

We are, as a sector, quite rightly seeing an increasing independence from government

The Institute for Learning (IFL), established as the professional standards and membership body for our sector, has lost the necessary credibility and membership pull required by a professional organisation, following a period of uncertainty about the future of teacher qualifications, and the government’s recent decision to scrap mandatory teaching qualifications is naïve, and worrying at best, leaving the IfL in a position of increased uncertainty.

We are, as a sector, quite rightly seeing an increasing independence from government in our expertise and ability to support and regenerate our economy, with thousands of employers already benefiting from structured skills training and workforce development.

Through this increase in occupational skills training we are looking to industry experts to provide the necessary delivery.

However, we must accept that industry expertise itself (although essential) is not enough to provide inspiring, articulated, effective teaching.

This skill and ability can only be gained through a clearly defined, legislated, teacher training pathway followed by a programme of regular continued professional development that equates to, and maintains, a teaching professionalism recognised by all in the sector and valued by practitioners.

We have a duty to ensure that we provide the best possible start for everyone on a career pathway and whether a negative, or positive experience, everyone, without exception remembers their last teacher.

It would be remiss of us to offer anything less. Teaching professionalism — don’t give up what we’ve earned.

Noel Johnson, director at Cityworks Training

Apprenticeship stories in the wider media of late have made hay about young people turning their backs on university and instead considering vocational learning. However, as Lynne Sedgmore explains, such promotion of an ‘FE versus higher education’ divide could be doing more harm than good.

There has been a sudden spate of stories recently about apprenticeships and higher education, often based around thinly-evidenced claims that ‘many’ young people are now said to prefer apprenticeships to university.

It is good if, as they suggest, both young people and employers hold apprenticeships in higher regard than they did a few years ago and even better news if employers are offering more apprenticeship places at higher levels.  There is however something superficial about much of the commentary with a potential to do serious harm.

The first issue is that the choice posed — university or apprenticeship is highly artificial and arbitrarily restricted. Most apprenticeships are offered at level three or below, so the real alternatives for a potential apprentice are A-levels or a vocational study programme in FE.

Although it is rarely reported, the great majority of those not on the A-level route are in FE colleges learning valuable vocational skills and, under the new study programmes, college learning will routinely be linked with work experience.

It is in nobody’s interests to persuade young people who are capable of higher education not to engage

The choice for someone qualified to go into higher education is wide, but apprenticeships are only a small part of it. Higher apprenticeships are not an alternative to higher education — they should properly be seen as part of it, although they are still pretty rare.

The problem with almost all the press reports is that they conflate higher education with full-time courses at university and miss the wide range of provision in FE colleges — full and part-time foundation degrees, higher diplomas and professional qualifications.  Much of this provision is strongly vocational with clear links to employment.

The second big issue is that it is in nobody’s interests to persuade young people who are capable of higher education not to engage; through a higher apprenticeship if they want and can find one, but otherwise through one of the many other options.

Any analysis of the labour market will show that it is high level jobs that are growing most quickly and are most important for future economic growth. It is wrong to encourage anyone capable of studying at HE level to settle for less and foolish to undermine the motivation of those seeking to gain the prerequisites for higher education entrance.

We need to reflect on which institutions would be damaged if significant numbers of well-qualified candidates turned their back on higher education

Commentators need to reflect on who is most likely to be influenced by the continual implication that higher education is not an appropriate aspiration for many. It won’t be those from families with several generations of higher education experience and a clear understanding of its benefits.  It is far more likely to be those for whom higher education in any form is a step into the unknown; already seen as more risky because of the scale of student debt.

Sowing generalised doubts about the benefits of higher education on the basis of little more than anecdote could set back the widening participation agenda and undermine social mobility.

Finally, we need to reflect on which institutions would be damaged if significant numbers of well-qualified candidates turned their back on higher education.

It wouldn’t be members of the Russell Group or other high status universities. It would be precisely those institutions with a widening participation mission, and ironically those FE colleges that have quietly built deep and close links with local employers.  There is a risk of the legendary ‘double whammy’ if higher education recruitment faltered at the same time as patient work to encourage aspiration in those from non-traditional backgrounds was undermined.

It is possible that this crop of stories was just silly season froth that will evaporate once results are out and choices have been made. Let’s hope so.

There does need to be a debate about the choices available to young people, but it needs to be considered, evidence-based and cover the full range of options available to them rather than a headline grabbing sound bite.

Lynne Sedgmore, executive director of the 157 Group