One of Wales’s largest apprenticeship providers has confirmed it will withdraw from delivering apprenticeships in England.
Gower College Swansea currently supports just 27 apprentices in England – down from 45 at the time of a recent Ofsted inspection in November – and will now “teach out” the remainder by summer 2027.
The move comes after a report by the inspectorate criticised the college’s small English operation, delivered mostly online, for too many withdrawals and slow progress made by apprentices.
A spokesperson for the college told FE Week the decision to exit England’s apprenticeship market was, however, made before the inspection and was a “strategic” move taken by a new leadership team due to the provision’s “relatively small scale”.
From suspension to good to needs attention
Gower College Swansea trains 2,200 Welsh apprentices through the country’s ‘Medr Apprenticeship Commissioning Programme Wales Framework’, according to its latest financial statements that boast of award-winning delivery and achievement rates above 70 per cent for the past three years.
The college made the rare move to become a non-England based provider that delivers apprenticeships in England in October 2017, keeping its operation across the border at around 50 apprentices annually.
Its England-based delivery, which requires a different ruleset to Wales, initially struggled and starts were suspended by the Department for Education in 2019 after an Ofsted early monitoring visit found the college making ‘insufficient progress’ across the board.
The suspension was lifted after the college significantly improved and Ofsted judged the college as ‘good’ overall in 2021.
Gower College Swansea was criticised by the watchdog again in a report published last week under the inspectorate’s new report card approach.
Out of five areas judged, Ofsted said the college was hitting the ‘expected standard’ in two areas – inclusion and participation and development – and ‘needs attention’ in three areas – leadership and governance, achievement, and curriculum and teaching.
Safeguarding standards were met.
Gower College Swansea’s overall apprenticeship achievement rate for 2023-24 in England was 55 per cent, against a national average of 61 per cent. It delivers a range of standards between levels 2 to 5 in sectors like manufacturing and management.
Ofsted’s report said: “Too many apprentices in England do not make expected progress or complete their qualifications.
“Although achievement rates improved on a few apprenticeships in 2024-25 and were high, the proportion of apprentices who achieved across other apprenticeships remained very low.”
It added that tutors and assessors “do not support the many apprentices with low levels of English and mathematics well enough to substantially improve these skills”.
Gower College Swansea does not have a base in England so delivers training to apprentices online, but with additional delivery supplied in person at employer partners’ premises predominantly across the south of England and the Midlands.
Ofsted criticised the college for a lack of routine meetings between apprentices, their assessor and line manager to review progress and plan learning together.
“Although they can access online college services and resources, most choose not to, citing time pressures,” inspectors found, adding that “a few” apprentices “struggle to use the online system that enables them to track their progress”.
The watchdog also said some apprentices do not receive the required protected off-the-job training time needed to complete their learning activities.
New leaders new ideas
Over the past year Gower College Swansea has brought in a new CEO and principal who have now decided to end delivery of apprenticeships in England.
Ofsted’s report noted that following a quality review, the college’s recently appointed senior leadership team “quickly and correctly identified most of the long-standing failings in the English apprenticeship provision” and implemented “comprehensive quality-improvement actions”.
However, sustained impact of the team’s actions was “not evident at the time of the inspection” and the team had not identified “shortcomings in the quality of training and support for apprentices with low English and mathematics skills”.
A Gower College Swansea spokesperson told FE Week: “Given the relatively small scale of the college’s English apprenticeship activity, leaders and governors made a strategic decision, prior to the inspection, to teach-out apprenticeship provision in England and to focus fully on supporting our existing apprentices to complete successfully.
“This decision enables the college to concentrate its expertise and resources on its core Welsh provision in the future, where we are delivering strong outcomes for learners and employers.”
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