It’s just over a year since the minimum duration rule was applied, meaning most apprenticeships would have to last at least a year. Phil Hatton looks at whether the rule offers the quality assurance it was hoped for.

I was one of the two authors of the first NVQ back in 1987, which really changed the face of the old style time-served apprenticeships and the way they have subsequently developed.

That first level two NVQ was supposed to be the equivalent of five GCSEs and got away from the concept of annual end-of-course examinations. It was designed for delivery anywhere and wasn’t confined to the classroom.

Therein lies the current problem for this and previous governments who have shared an obsession with large scale growth in the number of apprentices, regardless of what the apprenticeships were in or who the apprentices were.

The mistake that those in government have made is to think that using ‘time-served’ rather than ‘quality of delivery and learning’ is a magic potion to ‘root out poor delivery’.

Some adults taking apprenticeships have already developed substantial amounts of work skills which can accelerate how quickly they demonstrate their technical competence.

They will usually take longer to pass functional skills and other written tests such as technical certificates because they are out of the habit of studying.

However, if the decision has been taken to fund adults with previous experience as apprentices, they should not be forced to take a year by slowing-up their progress and diminishing their enthusiasm for learning, when nine months would do.

Not everything labelled ‘apprenticeship’ should be an apprenticeship

This ‘never mind the quality, think of the duration’ approach does not solve the problem of shoddy provision or work to ensure excellence in delivery, especially if the apprenticeship product is not equitable.

The real crux of the matter is not the time taken to deliver an apprenticeship, but the inequality between the different frameworks.

We are not talking about functional skills, but the heart of the apprenticeship, the vocational qualification.

That first NVQ was not time-bound, but the brightest apprentices took 18 months and most two years to achieve it (anything less and you knew there was something ‘dodgy’ occurring).

That ‘five-GCSE’ equivalent has now completely gone out of the window for a level two apprenticeship.

The simple truth is that not everything labelled ‘apprenticeship’ should be an apprenticeship.

An example that comes up frequently at conferences is the ‘security guard’ apprenticeship.

I had previously inspected excellent provision where training in the main area was delivered in three to four days and people got jobs. Now, even with some beefing up to make a framework, can that be worth the ‘five GCSEs’?

Providers have said they will have longer periods between visits to employers to stretch the delivery time out. Does that sound like quality delivery?

Proposals to get employers involved in designing qualifications already exists — in NVQs

Ofqual and the late QCA have not done the FE sector any favours by allowing the explosion in inequitable level two qualifications. Perhaps the term ‘traineeships’ should have been saved for the lesser content frameworks?

Post Richard Review, the proposals to get employers involved in designing qualifications already exists — in NVQs.

There is a reluctance by lead training organisations to help niche employers, such as newer engineering technologies, develop qualifications because of the low numbers who will need them.

The model of employer development being proposed sounds too much like an earlier failure, when colleges developed thousands of bespoke qualifications validated by other colleges.

But why learn from previous mistakes such as Training and Enterprise Council (TEC) direct NVQs (where TECs quality assured small providers and received countless inadequate inspection judgements) and franchising? These could have informed the rules for ensuring robust subcontracting?

My plea is for the Skills Minister, Matthew Hancock, to not rely solely on those who want to see increases in numbers engaging in apprenticeships, but to see engagement in apprenticeships that will mean something to employers and eventually offer a real alternative to university for our young people.

Phil Hatton, FE improvement consultant at Learning Improvement Service Ltd and former Ofsted HMI

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