WorldSkills UK plans to roll out a new competition to address the “skills and gender diversity crisis” in the UK film and TV industry.
The skills charity has promised to introduce a special effects (SFX) make-up programme by 2025 and promote skills in its national events that can be applied to the screen industries.
The new competition, which will see young people use make-up and prosthetics to create special effects for film and television, is replacing the existing creative media make-up competition to focus more on the film and TV industries.
WorldSkills UK will meet with training providers and creative industry experts this month to develop the competition to “align with employer needs” and plans to launch in early 2025.
The pledge comes as a new report by WorldSkills UK and the BBC warns of growing skills shortages in the film and TV sector and the perceived high barriers to entry from young people wanting to get into the industry.
Screen industries, which encompass film and TV, visual effects and video games, contributed £23 billion to the UK economy in 2022 but recent studies show 87 per cent of employers in the industry have a skills shortage problem.
Through a poll of over 2,000 young people, the report found that appetite for a career in the screen industries is being hindered by patchy careers advice by employers and training providers and a limited awareness of job opportunities in their technical skill in film and TV.
Emma Roberts, WorldSkills UK’s external affairs director said: “We know there are fantastic careers to be had in the screen industries, one of the fastest growing and internationally renowned sectors of our economy, but at the moment too many young people don’t see a way in.”
The report also found that young people thought it more important to know someone who already works in the industry and 87 per cent were not aware that carpentry and joinery were desired skills.
WorldSkills UK has advised employers and training providers to improve its careers information and has pledged to promote “good practice” of local partnerships in FE colleges.
“As a college, you don’t need to have a film and TV department,” Roberts told FE Week. “You could have a hairdressing team, but you can still show people that they can get into the creative industries. Those are the best practice examples we want to show.”
The report comes shortly after the announcement of the 31 competitors who will represent Team UK at the global “skills Olympics” in Lyon, France, this September.
A college has scrapped its computing degrees after an investigation by the higher education regulator raised concerns over their “credibility” and level of “educational challenge”.
The Office for Students (OfS) has published a review into Bradford College’s BSc (Hons) computing degrees, the first assessment of its kind of higher education course quality at an FE college.
The quality assessment team questioned the “validity” of the college’s computing degrees after its four-month investigation in late 2022 found concerns around the marking criteria and the higher-level courses were not challenging enough.
Bradford College told FE Week it would discontinue its six computing degrees after this academic year but said it had already conducted an internal review before the OfS investigation.
The news follows the government’s vow to crackdown on low quality “rip-off” degrees with high drop-out rates that do not lead to high-paid jobs, announced by prime minister Rishi Sunak last July.
Bradford College currently offers 97 higher education courses, according to its website.
College governors discussed a drop in forecasted HE student numbers in March. Last year the college received just over £7.3 million in higher education tuition fees, 4 per cent less than the year before, out of its total £80 million budget.
Courses ‘lacked educational challenge’
The OfS began its quality assessment in December 2022 and concluded in April 2023, having conducted staff and student interviews and observed teaching sessions.
In the 2022/23 academic year, there were 72 full-time and two part-time students studying across six BSc (Hons) computing courses at the college.
The courses are validated by the University of Bolton. This means that the college is responsible for the design and delivery of each course and the university carries out approval, review and validation.
All students graduating from one of the college’s BSc (Hons) computing courses receive a University of Bolton qualification.
The review found some assessments were not “valid or reliable” and “lenient marking” meant students could have passed without demonstrating a level of skill and knowledge needed for a computer science graduate. The OfS said this questioned “the credibility of the relevant awards granted to students”.
The report found the completion rate for full-time, first-degree students in computing over four years was 72.1 per cent, below the OfS threshold of 75 per cent.
From interviews with students and comparing course materials with A-level computer science specifications, the OfS team found the degree modules were not challenging enough “beyond level 3” for a “credible” computer science degree.
The report said: “During discussions with a group of six level 6 students, where course delivery and assessments (including the final year project) were discussed, the students reported that, in their opinion, there was generally little difference in the level of challenge between the modules taught to them at level 3 and level 4.
“Bradford College has not ensured that students registered on the relevant courses received a high-quality academic experience because the courses lacked educational challenge, coherence in relation to depth of content and did not require students to develop relevant technical skills.”
The OfS was given a mandate to examine the quality of assessments at higher education institutions in the 2022/23 academic year. To date, it has commissioned reviews into business and management courses at seven universities, including the University of Bolton. It also opened an investigation into computing courses at Goldsmiths College in London.
On Bradford College’s report, Jean Arnold, deputy director of quality at the OfS, said: “The assessment team were concerned the marking criteria used for more technical assessments may not have been designed for the assessment of this type of work, leading to concerns around the credibility of the qualifications offered.
“The assessment team also found that students may achieve higher grades than their technical skills were able to demonstrate, raising concerns that the awards may not be credible.”
A Bradford College spokesperson said: “We are open to the findings of the recent OfS quality assessment report relating to our BSc (Hons) computing courses and addressing any identified areas of improvement.
“However, the college undertook an internal review of this area prior to the assessment and has already executed plans to target these concerns.
“As such, the BSc (Hons) computing programmes will discontinue after current students complete their studies this academic year. The college is also working with local employers to develop a range of relevant alternative higher technical qualifications that will boost in-demand regional skills and ensure we retain computing progression routes.”
Sandwell College has finally announced its new principal – eight months after final interviews took place.
Lisa Capper will join the West Midlands college this November, replacing Graham Pennington who has held the post since 2014.
Recruitment for a successor to Pennington began last summer with applications closing in September and final interviews scheduled in October.
The college did not explain the delay at the time of going to press, however FE Week understands the college was unable to announce Capper’s appointment until the government had approved her salary package.
This makes Sandwell the latest college to face lengthy delays in announcing new leaders following the government’s reclassification of colleges to the public sector.
The Sandwell “family of colleges” includes Cadbury Sixth Form and Central Saint Michael’s Sixth Form.
The Department for Education promised in February that it would “streamline” signing-off senior pay approval requests after FE Week revealed wait times of up to five months.
Reclassification rules stipulate that colleges must obtain DfE and Treasury approval for hiring senior staff on pay packages of £150,000 or more.
Sandwell College’s 2022/23 accounts show that incumbent principal Pennington was paid a basic salary of £196,000, plus £40,000 in pension contribution, taking his total pay package to £236,000.
The principal salary was “designed to attract the very best candidate to lead Sandwell College,” the advert said, but did not specify a salary in accordance with DfE rules.
The college will also offer an £8,000 allowance for relocation costs and 35 days of holiday.
Senior pay red tape is also causing chaos for colleges wanting to give severance payments of £50,000 or more, where they are equal to three months’ salary or more, an exit package of £100,000 or more, or where the employee earns over £150,000.
Pennington will stay on at Sandwell College until November to facilitate a handover.
Capper has been CEO and principal at Stoke on Trent College since January 2022. In January 2021, she was awarded the MBE for services to young people.
Before her principalship at Stoke on Trent, she led education and skills provision at the social justice charity Nacro, which involved transforming Totton College to receive a grade 2 Ofsted rating in 2019.
She has also been vice principal of North Warwickshire and Hinckley College group and executive director of the college’s Midlands Academies Trust.
Previously, she served in the senior civil service as a specialist in FE at the Department for Education and the Department for Business Innovation and Skills leading on initiatives such as Skills for Life and WorldSkills.
Capper said: “I am delighted to be joining the Sandwell family of colleges at such an exciting time. The college offers great opportunity for the young people and residents of Sandwell and Birmingham to achieve their education and skills ambitions and develop their careers. I am looking forward to working with the talented and dedicated teams across all sites and hope that I can bring my skills and experience to build on their tremendous achievements.”
Alan Taylor, chair of Sandwell’s board, said: “Lisa brings extensive experience of senior leadership and governance in further education, and through the roles she has held in colleges, charities and in government, a demonstrable commitment to the learners we serve. We are delighted to welcome Lisa to the Sandwell family of colleges and look forward to her joining us in the autumn.
“On behalf of the board, I should like to extend our thanks to Graham for all his work and contribution to the progress of the colleges over the past decade. Under Graham’s leadership and by working collaboratively, we have seen the colleges go from strength to strength.”
The principal of a college in Devon has resigned with immediate effect.
Staff at Petroc College were informed of Sean Mackney’s departure just before half term.
He has led the college since 2019 but said it was time for “another to take that next step forward” in the job which is “immensely rewarding and challenging in equal measure”.
No interim principal has yet been appointed but a spokesperson said deputy Jason Jones will lead the executive team and wider college until interim arrangements are made.
The college could not comment on the sudden nature of Mackney’s exit.
Mackney told staff: “I have tried to bring energy, ideas, and belief in the immense capacities of those who commit to learning, to create solutions to all the situations we face. However, as we approach the end of the Petroc 2025 strategy and begin looking to what comes next I believe that it is time for another to take that next step forward.
“I wish you good luck and look forward to seeing you all working together in partnership to deliver for our learners, county, and communities in the coming years.”
Petroc, which teaches around 6,000 learners each year and employs almost 500 staff, was rated as ‘good’ by Ofsted in 2019 and is preparing for another inspection in the coming months.
The college’s accounts show its financial health rating is ‘requires improvement’, with a low EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) of 3.14 per cent and deficit of £2.1 million.
FE Week understands that Petroc has been making redundancies this year. The college’s spokesperson confirmed it was undergoing a “restructure process” owing to the “challenging financial context” the sector is currently operating in. They would not say how many posts are at risk as this was still being finalised.
Mackney’s departure came weeks after a council meeting about the future of Petroc’s campus in Tiverton, reported by Devon Live. The then principal told councillors the college greatly values the site amid concern there was an emphasis on the college’s Barnstaple campus.
A Petroc College spokesperson told FE Week there are no plans to close either college campus and said the college is currently up on student applications from this time last year.
On Mackney’s sudden exit, the spokesperson said: “The board of governors extended their gratitude to Sean for his unwavering dedication to Petroc, its students, staff, and the North Devon community over the past five years. They noted he has shown great commitment and creativity in working towards sustaining the college and its success.”
Prior to joining Petroc, Mackney was a pro vice chancellor at Bucks New University and was previously director of student education and engagement at the University of Exeter. He also held leadership roles at the Higher Education Academy, HEFCE and the HE Regional Development Association – South West.
Pre-apprenticeship traineeship courses could see a return under a Labour government, despite the Conservative government recently scrapping a similar scheme due to low take-up.
New training courses for young people would be funded by employers through Labour’s growth and skills levy, a replacement to the apprenticeship levy introduced by the Conservatives in 2017, the party has announced.
Labour announced it would replace the apprenticeship levy with a more flexible alternative in September 2022. Under Labour’s levy plans, employers would spend at least 50 per cent of their levy funds on apprenticeships but could spend the rest on other types of training.
This is in contrast to the current apprenticeship levy where funds can only be spent on apprenticeships.
Labour claims three per cent of funds from the skills and growth levy would fund 150,000 traineeships for young people in sectors such as digital, construction and electrical.
Today’s announcement doesn’t detail who would be eligible for new traineeships or how much of the programme would be delivered by employers or training providers.
Based on three per cent of the current levy bringing in around £100 million, the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimated each Labour traineeship would cost around £750, about the same as a functional skills qualification.
The Conservatives canned the traineeship programme in August after achieving just a third of its recruitment target, despite being funded at around three times the per-head rate Labour has proposed.
Business could also spend their levy on non-apprenticeship training for existing workers, including modular courses in “new industries and technologies” identified in local skills improvement plans, Labour re-announced today.
Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary, said: “Businesses are crying out for help to tackle skills shortages, so Labour will give them the flexibility needed to create skills training opportunities and drive economic growth through a growth and skills levy.”
Labour claimed its more flexible levy would also reverse the decline in adults in training under the Conservatives.
Opposition ministers have been asking businesses to sign a letter of support for their new growth and skills levy, according to reports.
“The choice on July 4 is between a Conservative Party that has given up on upskilling the nation and Labour that will see in a golden age in lifelong learning so that everyone can get on and fire the growth our economy needs,” Phillipson said.
Labour has previously defended its growth and skills levy plans amid criticism from training leaders worried it would devalue and reduce apprenticeships.
Apprenticeships in small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) are currently paid for from levy funds businesses pay in but don’t draw down for their own apprenticeships.
Business and sector leaders have raised concerns that by encouraging businesses to spend more of the levy on non-apprenticeship training, there wouldn’t be the unspent funds available to spend on apprenticeships in small businesses.
In June 2023, then shadow skills minister Toby Perkins said he’d won a commitment from Labour’s treasury team for a ringfenced budget to protect funding for SME apprenticeships.
However, shadow education ministers have dodged questions on this and there’s been no mention of such a dedicated budget since.
Conservative ministers claim Labour’s levy plans would half the number of apprenticeships available.
In a new report last week, Learning and Work Institute estimated low skills levels was costing the economy £20 billion a year amid declining investment in training from government and employers.
An end to one-word judgements and the need for more specialist inspectors with “credibility” are some of the top issues raised by sector bodies during Ofsted’s ‘Big Listen’ exercise.
The wide-ranging consultation exercise, launched in response to the coroner’s report on the death of Ruth Perry, closes at midnight after almost three months.
Ofsted chief inspector, Sir Martyn Oliver said in his first keynote speech in post “every voice will be heard” in the Big Listen and “nothing is off the table.”
The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) has strongly urged Ofsted to completely remove graded judgements, which it called “the single biggest reform that would alleviate anxiety” in the education system.
Others, including the Association of Colleges (AoC) and the Sixth Form Colleges Association (SFCA) both shared concerns about the “high-stakes approach” behind the one-word.
Damaging consequences
Aside from reputational damage, concerning consequences include entering formal intervention, losing out on capital funding or access to initiatives with foreign students.
The SFCA said: “Tweaks can and should be made to ensure that a system focused on accountability is as humane and fair as possible, but a peer review system would be one in which grades are either not given or matter less – both cannot coexist in the format of the current inspection framework.”
The Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) called for a “wider range” of inspection grades, suggesting the re-introduction of a judgement that recognises whether providers have the “capacity to improve”.
They pointed out that unlike other educational institutions, there is “no second chance” for private providers who receive a grade four outcome, who often see the Department for Education “terminate their funding agreement”.
The Fellowship of Inspection Nominees (FIN) agreed with AELP, telling Ofsted that keeping single-word judgements is “not a huge issue”.
FIN, which represents a range of providers, colleges and universities that are inspected by Ofsted and receive public education funding, said a different word to ‘inadequate’ is “most definitely needed”.
On the well-being of staff at providers following Ruth Perry’s death, FIN said its members have reported “more consideration” from inspectors.
Inspectors’ credibility questioned
But the AoC said the quality, knowledge and “credibility” of some inspectors is a concern for many colleges due to their “complex diversity” of learners.
It said: “Too often, new inspectors appear to not have the confidence to make a judgement, rigidly applying the framework/handbook and lacking flexibility and applying common sense.”
FIN – which based its submissions to Ofsted on discussions and surveys with over 1,000 responses – said it regularly hears that too many inspectors “lack experience” in sectors such as apprenticeships.
One member providing hairdressing apprenticeships reported that an experienced inspector with a college background repeatedly asked questions about maths, English and Prevent during a lesson about the ‘balayage’ hair highlighting technique.
Natspec, which represents organisations that provide further education for students with learning difficulties, said inspectors do not always have a “sufficient understanding” of all learners.
But attempts to help the watchdog “address a gap in expertise” have been “slow”.
Examples the membership body cited included rejecting a proposal to produce a video resource for understanding people with profound and multiple learning disabilities.
Other key themes in the sector bodies’ feedback included a desire for more consistency in inspections and questions over whether the same education inspection framework should apply to every type of provider.
FIN told Ofsted the framework should be “streamlined to reflect different types of provision.
It shared the view of other membership bodies such as AELP, that only funded provision should be graded by Ofsted.
They said: “Reform should follow the principle that if it’s paid for, it should be graded; if it is not in the contract and therefore not funded, don’t grade.”
The Big Listen consultation survey closes at 11.59pm on May 31 and found be found on the Ofsted website.
Dyson’s degree apprenticeship programme has been rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted, months after the company announced it will drop the programme and replace it with an employer-sponsored Masters degree due to the “onerous administrative burden”.
The Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology, located in the company’s Wiltshire headquarters, teaches about 120 apprentice employees who are studying product design and development engineering.
Following an inspection in April, the education watchdog heaped praise on the institute for its “highly effective” curriculum that is “exciting, ambitious, coherently planned and sequenced well”.
They rated the institute as ‘outstanding’ in all areas including quality of education, leadership and apprenticeships.
The rating comes as the employer provider celebrates being awarded full degree-awarding powers by the Office for Students and moves away from the “onerous” regulation of degree apprenticeships.
From September this year, the institute will drop the degree apprenticeship and instead offer an engineering master’s to its recruits.
In plans announced in November last year, Dyson said the “heavy (and costly) administrative burden” of the degree apprenticeship means it will “forego” all of its apprenticeship levy funding. It instead “plans to invest at least £250,000” in each of its successor employer-sponsored degree students over their four-year course.
‘Rapid and sustained progress’
However, the institute’s students will continue to live on the Dyson’s Wiltshire research and development campus and follow the same weekly routine as apprentices.
Apprentices – who start on a wage of £22,000 per year – “successfully develop” their skills through the four-year course and make “exceptional progress” in applying their knowledge in their work at the company.
They are taught in “high-quality and well-structured” sessions by knowledgeable lecturers in “excellent facilities and world-class workshops”.
Inspectors said: “Apprentices make rapid and sustained progress from their starting points.
“They develop the skills they need to be highly successful engineers and engineering leaders of the future.”
During their time as apprentices, they transition from “safe, known work to ambiguous problem solving”.
All the apprentices are Dyson employees and study the level 6 product design and development degree apprenticeship.
For two days a week they take part in lectures, laboratory work, tutorials and self-study. They spend the remaining three days on “live projects” in the workplace.
Around one-fifth of the 121 apprentices in the first three years of the programme were 18 years old and a third were female, according to the report.
Apprentices told inspectors they are “proud” to be part of the programme, which builds their confidence and resilience as they learn.
They also benefit from a summer programme that bridges the gap between each academic year and work with different teams during their eight-week work placement in year three.
The institute is also overseen by a council of non-executive directors who “recognise rightly the importance” of drawing a line between apprenticeship provision and the employer.
Director Beverly Gibbs said the institute is “thrilled” about the Ofsted grade and new degree awarding powers.
She added: “These achievements are testament to our dedicated and talented team, to a thriving and engaged student community, and to a vast network of committed executives, line managers, technical mentors and wide-ranging support teams at Dyson.”
Day two of the University and College Union’s flagship annual congress will not go ahead tomorrow due to a walkout by its own staff.
For the first time in the union’s 18-year history, nearly 200 UCU workers, represented by the Unite union, will go on strike after an Acas meeting last Friday failed to reach an agreement over concerns of workplace racism, workplace stress and breaching collective agreements.
Further and higher education policy motions, which set UCU policy for the year, were scheduled for debate at the national congress in Bournemouth tomorrow but will now not go ahead.
FE motions included strategies for campaigns on teacher pay, workload, adult education funding, gender inequality and the new prison education contracts.
In a pre-recorded speech to congress delegates, her first since being re-elected for a second five-year term, general secretary Jo Grady said the ongoing dispute was “very regrettable”.
“We have some challenges and the ongoing dispute with the staff union Unite is very regrettable. I want to ensure every member and all of our staff that we are doing everything possible to get to a better place and reach a settlement.”
UCU told delegates this morning it was “incredibly sorry” that its congress, which will resume and conclude on Friday, would be disrupted and was working on reaching a settlement with Unite.
No events scheduled tomorrow will take place, including an FE sector conference, fringe meetings and an evening conference dinner.
Instead, UCU employees will protest outside the Bournemouth International Centre, where congress is taking place and hold a strike rally inside the nearby Bournemouth Marriott Highcliff Hotel.
Unite’s UCU branch is hosting a “Not the Congress Dinner Disco”, an alternate evening conference dinner for members and UCU delegates.
In early May, nearly three-quarters of the union’s 182 members of Unite voted earlier this week to strike over UCU’s allegedly “shameful” handling of workplace racism and a breach of collective agreements.
“How can they effectively support Black members when they themselves are not being supported?”
A UCU spokesperson said: “UCU met with Unite representatives on Friday 24 May at Acas and again on Wednesday 29 May in Bournemouth. Although a number of proposals were put forward by UCU management during these meetings in response to the issues of dispute, unfortunately no agreement was reached.
“We are ready and willing to continue talks, including further talks at Acas, to find an agreed way forward on the issues at the heart of this dispute. We remain fully committed to finding solutions and working to create the best possible working environment for our staff.”
Unite said it was not opposed to UCU rescheduling the FE and HE conferences once the dispute was settled.
A spokesperson said: “This strike action is a message to our employer that we want real change within UCU. Unite members are deeply disappointed in our employer’s response so far and are angry that our concerns still aren’t being heard. So today we say enough is enough.
“We are resolute in our demands for an anti-racist workplace, for UCU as an employer to honour its collective agreements with us and, for an independent investigation into how the organisation is run. We are determined to bring about the change that UCU staff and UCU members so desperately deserve.”
Unite UCU members picketing outside Bournemouth International Centre on May 30. Credit – UCU Ulster
‘Breakdown in industrial relations’
In an email sent out to delegates this morning, seen by FE Week, UCU detailed a response to each issue that Unite members were balloted on.
The union told delegates in an open letter that it was “100 per cent committed” to resolving the dispute and acknowledged that “there has undoubtedly been a breakdown in industrial relations, that cannot be argued”.
“We know that it is upsetting to attend congress in these circumstances, and this is why we are writing directly to you to outline exactly what has happened in UCU,” the email said, signed by the UCU management team.
UCU bosses said they “firmly reject” the claims made by the Black members group in March over the alleged “disproportionate use” of disciplinary procedures with Black staff.
“The policies we have in place at UCU are robust and crucially, developed and agreed with Unite. We do not use them disproportionately,” they said.
UCU added that the details of the independent review into concerns of racism will be confirmed shortly.
Juliana Ojinnaka, a lecturer at Sheffield College and member of the Black members standing committee said the independent review is “a lot of rhetoric”.
“We’ve heard it all, we’ve worn the t shirt and so on, what we want is action,” she told FE Week on strike day.
“We want Jo Grady to put her money where her mouth is. She signed up for TUC anti racism taskforce. She went through the training, but the reality is that she’s not actually rolled it out within her organisation.”
She added that Black UCU members are more likely to be off sick from “day-to-day racism” in their workplace and union.
“In the workplace, day-to-day racism is going on. [Black staff] are the ones most likely to be observed, most likely to have something written against their name,” she said.
“They’re the ones who are going to be brought in at the last minute to cover classes and so on without adequate preparation. And so you’re facing this in your workplace, but also you’re facing it in your union. When you’re off ill you’re not sure whether you’re off because of the workplace stress or the union stress.
“It’s the same thing that’s happening with the members in Unite. So how can they effectively support Black members when they themselves are not being supported?”
Another accusation brought by Unite was over the formation of a separate union by senior leaders, which breached their recognition agreement with UCU as the sole recognised staff union.
UCU admitted “in hindsight” that it should have formally communicated with Unite over recognising another union branch formed by a “significant minority of our own staff”.
“A significant number of UCU staff chose to leave the Unite branch,” the email reads. “Those staff joined the GMB and requested recognition for staff at their grade, indicating that they would not be rejoining Unite.
“The choice for us therefore as an employer was to recognise their new union, as requested, whilst maintaining every process and agreement in place with the Unite branch, or to ignore a significant minority of our own staff. We could not do that.”
Unite members were also balloted to strike over their employer’s “failure to follow the UCU procedure for organisational change”.
UCU has yet to settle disputes with Unite on a hybrid working policy and a gender identity policy.
The Conservatives have pledged 100,000 more apprenticeships by 2029 if they win the general election.
The policy, estimated to cost £885 million by 2029/30, would see apprenticeship starts rise to around 440,000 by the end of the next parliament, paid for by shutting down “underperforming” university courses.
Rishi Sunak
This comes as the Conservatives once again take aim at “rip-off degrees” in a new pledge that would see the Office for Students empowered by new laws to close university courses it deems offer poor value to students and taxpayers.
Prime minister Rishi Sunak said: “Thanks to our plan, apprenticeships are much higher quality than they were under Labour. And now we will create 100,000 more, by putting an end to rip-off degrees and offering our young people the employment opportunities and financial security they need to thrive.”
Apprenticeship starts, particularly for young people, nosedived since the introduction of the apprenticeship levy in 2017. There were 122,750 apprentices aged under 19 in 2016/17, the year before the levy was introduced, and just 77,720 in 2022/23.
For apprentices of all ages, there were just short of 500,000 apprenticeships starts in the year before the levy was introduced, but 337,000 in 2022/23.
Continuing trends
The party have set their numbers assuming the same completion rates and trends on the distribution of apprentices across levels as in 2021/22. In that year the completion rate was just 54.8 per cent, meaning nearly half dropped out. This is despite the Conservative government setting an achievement rate target of 67 per cent.
It also assumes continuing dominance of more expensive, higher-level and degree apprenticeships predominantly going to older workers.
The Conservatives said their 100,000 apprentices pledge would be backed by new funding and strengthening flex-job apprenticeships in the creative sector.
This follows the prime minister’s announcement in March that the government would fully fund starts for apprentices aged under 22 in small businesses, eliminating the 5 per cent training fee firms were required to pay. The move boosted the apprenticeships budget from £2.669 billion to £2.729 billion for this year and would deliver an extra 20,000 apprenticeships, the government claimed.
Ben Rowland, chief executive at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, which represents apprenticeship training companies, welcomed the extra funding but said employers had to step up.
“Whichever party finds itself in government there will need to be a commitment to encouraging more employers offering apprenticeship opportunities. After all, if individual employers don’t step up, we will be failing the 900,000 young people not in employment, education or training,” Rowland said.
This is not the first time the Conservatives have claimed to boost apprenticeships at the expense of university degrees.
Last summer, the Department for Education launched a funding review of over 100 apprenticeships as part of the government’s campaign at that time to “crackdown on rip-off university degrees.”
The Conservatives are now pledging “bold action to replace these degrees with apprenticeships” which they claim will “boost young people’s life chances and stop the taxpayer rip-off.”
Just last week, CIPD became the latest employer body to point out that recent apprenticeship reforms have “clearly favoured those aged 25 and above.”
However, Conservative ministers have consistently rejected suggestions from sector and employer bodies to reform the apprenticeship levy to reverse the decline in young people, lower level and small business apprenticeships.
Further education colleges, which trained 17 per cent of apprentices last year, are among those calling for levy reforms.
Julian Gravatt, deputy chief executive of the Association of Colleges, welcomed the Conservatives’ 100,000 target but added: “Urgent reform of the apprenticeship levy, ensuring that at least half of the levy should be spent on apprenticeships for new job starters and entry level jobs, would lead to more young people across the country completing an apprenticeship.”
Savings from ‘underperforming’ degrees
Alongside efforts to increase apprenticeship starts, a returned Conservative government would empower the Office for Students with new laws to close down university courses with high dropout rates, poor progression to graduate jobs and poor graduate “earnings potential”.
“Improving education is the closest thing we have to a silver bullet for boosting life chances. So it’s not fair that some university courses are ripping young people off,” Sunak said.
Closing so-called “underperforming” courses would save £910 million, the party claimed, based on 13 per cent of the student cohort.
This has been estimated on the basis of £1.1 billion being saved from the above-average taxpayer offset of year 1 student loans in “poorer quality” courses and then an assumption that 50 per cent of the cohort whose courses have closed going to an apprenticeship, 25 per cent to employment and 25 per cent choosing a different degree.
Gravatt said it was “hard to see” how savings from shut down degree courses would transfer to apprenticeships.
“There is no cap on higher education, so if you shut down some courses which government deems to be low quality, students may simply take a different degree-level course,” he said.
‘Laughable’ says Labour
Bridget Phillipson
Bridget Phillipson, Labour’s shadow education secretary, said: “It is laughable that the Tories, who have presided over a halving of apprenticeships for young people, are now announcing this.
“Why on earth should parents and young people believe they’ll create training opportunities now, after 14 years of failing to deliver opportunities for young people and the skills needed to grow our economy?”
Liberal Democrat education spokesperson, Munira Wilson said: “The Conservative party has broken the apprenticeship system and this announcement does nothing to address the major issues the sector faces.
“The shockingly low pay for those on apprenticeships will remain, doing nothing to encourage more people to take apprenticeships up or tackle soaring drop out rates.
