apprenticeships | FE Week

Apprenticeship funding model report provokes dismay

A long-awaited report on whether the government’s forecasting tool to predict apprenticeship starts is working has caused dismay over “seriously flawed” assumptions. Cambridge Econometrics won a £15,000 contract in March to assess the Department for Education’s apprenticeships projection tool, that looks ahead to resulting spending requirements under the new apprenticeship levy-based system. In its tender […]

Levy cash must be used to widen access to apprenticeships

The AoC’s Teresa Frith believes that the chancellor should make tweaks to apprenticeship funding, rather than wholesale changes Apprenticeships are an increasingly important part of the long-term plan for workforce development, enhanced productivity and social inclusion in England. The government’s reform programme is aimed at ensuring apprenticeships in England become more rigorous and more responsive […]

Apprenticeships are “fragile” training, research shows

Relying on employer involvement makes apprenticeships a “fragile” form of training, according to new research. A new study by Oxford University’s department for education and the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) has reviewed apprenticeship participation on a global scale, and suggest they “play an important role in supporting young people to make the transition […]

Learn from recent history to avert apprenticeship disaster

Government figures have revealed a dramatic 61-per-cent drop in apprenticeship starts between May and July, compared with the same period last year, following the levy launch. As the sector waits to see if this forces a major rethink, FE Week’s deputy editor Paul Offord looks back to another apprenticeship policy catastrophe that sparked a quick U-turn. […]

What do employers really want from an apprenticeship provider?

Employers are becoming increasingly savvy about what they want from training providers. Annette Allmark explains exactly how to make your pitch stand out and win more business It’s almost six months since the levy was introduced, enough time to make an initial assessment. After a snapshot survey in August, we discovered that employers struggle to […]

ESFA row-back on plans to increase apprenticeship performance threshold

The government has today scrapped plans to increase by three percentage points the apprenticeship minimum standard achievement threshold. The minimum standard is an important performance measure as the Education and Skills Funding Agency “monitors delivery against that minimum standard, which could trigger intervention to support improvement”. The ESFA: “calculate how many of the apprenticeships or […]

Why are neurodiverse apprentices so badly supported?

Students’ learning needs are met at university, but not on apprenticeships, says Chris Quickfall How can it be, in a world that talks so much about equality and diversity, that the self-development opportunities for learners with a neurodiversity, for instance dyslexia, favour one post-16 study route far more than another? If a learning weakness is […]

Minister ‘misled’ MPs over apprenticeships at Learndirect

MPs were “misled” in Parliament by the skills minister Anne Milton today, after she claimed apprenticeships are “no longer offered” by Learndirect. The minister was grilled by Labour’s Wes Streeting on the controversy engulfing the nation’s largest FE provider, which is increasingly seen as being offered highly preferential treatment by the Department for Education. Even […]

Colleges ‘deeply concerned’ about £650m non-levy tender

The Education and Skills Funding Agency was accused of plunging the relaunched non-levy apprenticeship funding tender process into chaos last night, as new “clarifications” and document updates were sent out. David Hughes reflects on college concerns below. Colleges are very frustrated and deeply concerned about the timing and the details of this procurement. Concerned because […]