Apprenticeships should be restricted to learners under the age of 25, according to researchers from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) in a new book launched today.

Proposals include increasing the funding for pre-apprenticeship training by applying an age limit to all apprenticeship starts.

Tess Lanning, a research fellow at IPPR and Tony Dolphin, IPPR’s senior economist argue that while training adults is important, it’s damaging to call it an apprenticeship.

“Increasing the number of apprenticeships that are offered to people aged 25 and over has diluted the important role that they should play in socialising young people and preparing them for the world of work,” The report states.

“Adult apprenticeships cannot exist by definition and the government should limit them to young people. Apprenticeships should not be just another form of on-the-job training; they should be something special, easing the transition of young people into work through a mix of on-the-job specific training and more general off-the-job learning.

“People who have already been in the labour market for a number of years require other types of training. There is a case for the government to create a stronger adult skills system that supports people to cope with economic change, but apprenticeships are not the appropriate vehicle.”

The pair add that pre-apprenticeship training should be used to help young people who are unemployed and “lack even the most basic skills required by employers” to get onto an apprenticeship scheme.

“The apprenticeship ‘brand’ should be reserved for young people developing the skills they need to flourish in the labour market.

“We are sceptical about the quality of some apprenticeships offered to older workers and believe they offer a poor return to the government, compared to helping young people prepare for an apprenticeship.”

‘Rethinking apprenticeships’ was launched by John Hayes, Minister of State for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning at the AoC Annual Conference and Exhibition in Birmingham.

Mr Hayes has written a chapter in the book outlining new government priorities that will ensure apprenticeships are ‘no longer to be seen as the poor relation of academic study’.

The Minister states that training in new areas such as advanced engineering, information technology and the creative industries will help re-establish apprenticeships as the ‘primary form’ of practical training.

The report also says that level 2 apprenticeships need to be clearly branded as an ‘intermediate’ qualification to learners in order to encourage them to progress to higher levels.

“I want many more apprenticeships to be at higher levels, up to degree level and even above. The government has announced a higher apprenticeship fund, worth £25m, which will support up to 10,000 more advanced and higher apprenticeships,” Mr Hayes said.

Mr Hayes also said FE colleges are the ‘great unheralded triumph’ of the education system, and would be given even greater freedoms by the coalition.

“We are replacing the costly regime of centralisation with genuine devolution of power within the system.

“The government’s primary role is to create a framework that helps individuals and their employers to get the learning they want or need.

“An indispensable part of achieving this goal is removing the barriers in the way of learning providers’ efforts to respond to what their customers are demanding.”

Other contributors include Martin Doel, Chief Executive of the Association of Colleges (AoC), who published the book in partnership with the IPPR.

Mr Doel said apprenticeships should take influence from the German ‘meister’ model and teach young people generall skills, as well as English and maths at FE colleges.

“Particularly for young people, an apprenticeship’s value in the labour market lies as much in its teaching of general skills as its occupational training,” Mr Doel said.

“There is a good case for a strong core offer, delivered in partnership with colleges, for young people, not just those under 19 but perhaps up to the age of 25.

“Those aged under 19 should certainly enjoy time off-the-job for learning equivalent to that in Germany, so they can learn not just English and maths but also the generic skills that will stand them in good stead in an economy where adaptability scores highly.”

Mr Doel added that learners aged 25 and above need a completely different apprenticeship model in order to become a ‘meister’, or a highly skilled craftsman or woman.

“Apprentices aged 27 may have been working for a decade, and have gained many of the personal, learning and thinking skills that are so essential in the SASE framework.

“They may want, not just level 3 courses, but highly advanced level 4 and 5 apprenticeships where they either learn the skills needed to become a manager or to become what the Germans would call a meister.”

Mr Doel added that a qualification equivalent to the meister currently does not exist.

“It is something akin to the master craftsman diploma that we should seek to incorporate within our apprenticeship programme, recognising it as an alternative to the management route,” Mr Doel said.

The definition, purpose and identity of apprenticeships was criticised heavily at the ‘Growth in Apprenticeships: real or rebrand?’ debate held in the House of Commons last week.

More than eighty representatives from colleges, training providers and political parties discussed the rising number of apprentices aged 25 and above, and whether this was simply a ‘rebadging’ of the Train to Gain initiative.

Teresa Firth, Senior Skills Policy Manager at the Association of Colleges (AoC), said: “When is an apprenticeship really an apprenticeship?

“It’s perhaps not unjustifiable for Morrison’s to deliver a program in a certain amount of time, but it’s inappropriately named an apprenticeship.

“It may be appropriate for those individuals in that circumstance and at that time to meet those very specific needs – but it’s not an apprenticeship.”

As the funding and structure of vocational training continues to broaden, the very concept of what an apprenticeship should be was brought into question on numerous occassions..

Gordon Marsden MP, Shadow Minister for Further Education, Skills and Regional Growth, said: “What is an apprenticeship, and how do you define it? That is very key and very important.

“It’s almost worse for a young person to remain unemployed then to be put into a position of training that then doesn’t take them any further to the employment position.”

Judy Brandon, National Policy Manager at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), said there also needed to be a debate about the funding of apprenticeships:

She said: “Once you’ve got that definition, you then have to work out who pays. Who pays for which elements in particular?”

The further education sector is often quick to pounce on private training providers, asking them to take greater responsibility for the needs of the economy and individual learners.

However, Mick Fletcher, a visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Education and consultant, said that providers shouldn’t be blamed for taking advantage of the system.

“Providers are doing exactly what under the current system they’re supposed to do,” Mr Fletcher said.

“It raises some big question marks as to whether we want a system in which we try to design everything at the centre and then apply a series of sticks and carrots to try and drive providers in particular directions.”

A number of training providers were in attendance at the debate, but it was down to Karen Martin, Skills and Enterprise Director at Ixion Holdings Ltd, to justify the industry’s behaviour.

“The growth of apprenticeships was inevitable,” she said.

“Employers are being told, or sold, apprenticeships as opposed to NVQs, as that’s where the money is. That’s where the funding is now, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable for providers to be selling where the funding currently sits, and where the future for funding is.

“The government priority came out last year that apprenticeships were the priority, and I think the training providers have adapted exceedingly quickly to change their delivery models.”

Apprenticeships are often portrayed as a solution to the growing number of young people not in employment, education or training.

But as the number of new apprentices aged between 16 and 24 slows down, it’s inevitable that colleges are starting to look elsewhere as a means to hitting government targets.

Ray Shilling, Head of Employer Training Solutions at Westminster Kingsway College, said: “We try and do as many 16 to 18 year-olds as possible, but there’s not the jobs out there to apply for, so it’s become a stagnant market.

“When April hit our policy within the college was to concentrate on apprenticeships and grown apprenticeships even further – so the biggest area you can grow apprenticeships in is for learners aged 25 and above.”.

The majority of attendees agreed that in principal, there was nothing wrong with retraining or re-skilling employees. The problem is that once learners gain an apprenticeship qualification, sometimes it has an insignificant effect on their career.

A spokesperson from National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) said: “People do need opportunities to progress throughout their working lives.

“People who are already working for the employer and then being put onto an apprenticeship program – sometimes that is not a bad thing. But if the person who goes through an apprenticeship stays on the same job, or doesnt get any pay rise, then is that really a good use of public money? I’d suggest not.”

If professionals can’t work out what an apprenticeship is, imagine what it must be like for the learner. Peter Cobrin, National Education Director at www.notgoingtouni.co.uk, said the government needed to provide secondary schools with better guidance and support.

“There’s an elephant in the room here. If you ask anybody what it the real problem with apprenticeships is, it is the fact that people don’t understand them, the people that need to know about them don’t know about them, and that is because the Department for Education (DfE) is almost ideologically predisposed against vocational learning, vocational training.”

Mr Cobrin added: “Is 12 weeks working in a catering establishment and coming up with an certificate – is that an apprenticeship? Or  three years working in a engineering company – is that an apprenticeship? We haven’t got a handle around what it is.”

Funding and payments were a central issue to the discussions. As plans for a further education loans system continues to gain momentum, the apprenticeship wage was brought into question.

Martin Prescott, Managing Director of HT Skills, said: “It’s enormously difficult to get young people to go into a job at £19 a week when they can sit at home for £63 a week.

“That is a fundamental problem and there are only a few ways to solve it.”

Dave Hall, Director of Work-based Learning at Sunderland simply said: “I’m worried to death about the future of apprenticeships.”

The debate identified serious concerns not only with the funding mechanisms behind apprenticeships, but the very concept of vocational training.

Apprenticeships need to work out its ongoing identity crisis, and fast.