Ofsted, stop treating young apprentices like school pupils

The government has instigated a welcomed, fresh approach on how Ofsted will make its judgements across the post-16 sector as part of Andy Burnham’s technical education and devolution reforms. With the final report of Alan Milburn’s NEET review also on the horizon, it is important to have the right enablers in place to maximise the impact of the proposed changes.

I have just written to the skills minister with FIN’s recommendations to support Burnham’s reforms.

Starting with Ofsted, the current requirement for inspectors to judge FE colleges on how well their provision is meeting local, regional and national skills needs, which was introduced in 2022, should be extended to all types of education and training providers to be more meaningful. It is particularly important that young people, employers and mayors as commissioners should know which local providers are delivering strongly or exceptionally in this respect.

Furthermore, now that the mayors have joint ownership over the local skills improvement plans (lsips), inspectors should seek evidence that a provider is being responsive to lsip objectives. Links with employers and the critical role training providers make in brokering opportunities for apprenticeships for 16 to 18 year olds should be highly valued and carry more weight. Overall, the balance in judgement should change when Ofsted reconsiders its expectations for this age group.

Next, Ofsted should not be treating 16 and 17 year old apprentices as children when they have chosen to enter the world of work. For an apprentice in a full-time job, with a limited agreed number of off-the-job hours and a funding stream to match the mandatory provision only, this means not having to be taught the wider curriculum such as healthy living, eating, sexual health or any participation and development training. Participation in this additional and non-funded learning along with voluntary work or similar initiatives should instead be optional.

On career guidance, we strongly recommend that signposting to public information, further training and freely accessible websites should be sufficient on the part of the training provider and the provider should not be judged beyond that. The young people themselves, holding down full time jobs and studying for an apprenticeship completion, should be given the freedom to decide whether to take up this advice.

FIN knows from working directly with apprentices that many of them feel it’s wrong for them to be forced to attend the wider curriculum sessions while in full-time work, whereas it might be appropriate for their peers in full-time study. We hear examples of where young apprentices and work-based learners call out inspectors’ questioning on this as unwelcome interference when they want to be seen and treated as adults.

This is not about lowering standards or short-changing apprentices; this is about ensuring that an inspectorate recognises the vocational route chosen and adapts its expectations accordingly to maximise positive outcomes for young people.

For enablers to reduce the number of young people in danger of becoming NEET, the government and the strategic authorities should adopt the mantra of “encourage, equip and empower”.

In this context the prime minister’s announcements could go a long way to making it easier for us to encourage young people to consider vocational options, providing the correct form of signposting is in place. Regional adaptations of the MBacc (if that is the direction of travel) should also equip them to progress.

To empower young people to embark on a meaningful career, more apprenticeships and work placements are key. It is encouraging that the government has introduced positive new incentives for employers to take on young apprentices, but the programme budget should not be inappropriately capped if demand among young people and employers for apprenticeships grows and the levy is raising almost £4.4 billion every year.

Under a previous Labour government, we saw fantastic opportunities identified by the Tomlinson and Leitch reviews not taken forward. This administration cannot afford to preside over the same type of blockage again. We are ready to give full support to the latest proposals.