Examination of Witnesses (Questions 620
- 631)
TUESDAY 6 MARCH 2007
DFES
Q620 Rob Marris: For us to understand.
Bill Rammell: In terms of the
learning opportunity that is available to the individual—
Q621 Mark Hunter: Perhaps you can
send us an idiot's guide.
Bill Rammell: If you compare the
situation today to, say, three or four years ago, the very clearly
established entitlement to a Level 2 free qualification I think
is robustly getting across to people. If you looked at the proportions
who are aware of that today compared to four years ago, they have
increased. Do we need to do more of that? Yes, we do, and that
is why we are leading the national communications campaign; it
is why the brokers are constantly contacting employers. I guess
in summation I would say there has been a significant improvement
but we undoubtedly have to go further.
Chairman: We will be exploring this more
with our next witness because there is considerable confusion
particularly at the regional level about the overlap between various
responsibilities.
Q622 Rob Marris: You said a moment
ago that apprenticeships are a key part of the way forward and
you mentioned that about a third of them are in manufacturing.
Our understanding is that the completion rate for engineering
and manufacturing apprenticeships is under 50%. If that is right,
why is that, because it is a lot lower than university degree
courses, for example?
Bill Rammell: It is. You need
to see this as a time sequence. Engineering manufacturing mirrors
this improvement. Completion rates for apprenticeships generally
over the last five years have gone from 28% to 53% last year and
59% so far this year. That has been due to a very focused effort
by the Department with the Learning and Skills Councils, with
providers, to ensure that there is a quality product and that
we help people through that programme; but part of what we are
grappling with here is full employment. Somebody goes on to an
apprenticeship programme, a job offer comes up somewhere else
and they are attracted to take that as a short term route, thinking
it is a better option for them. That is an ongoing challenge and
part of what we need to get across to young people and adults
is that what might seem a short term, quick fix, in the longer
term, in terms of your interests, may not be the easiest route.
Q623 Rob Marris: These are people
who are halfway through an apprenticeship and what comes up appears
to be a better job so they abandon the apprenticeship and go and
do the other job?
Bill Rammell: Yes. If you talk
to providers and employers on the ground, that is often a facet
of this. Nevertheless, if you look at those figures, 28% to 53
and 59% is a significant improvement because we have been very
conscious of the need to drive up completion rates. We are now
moving towards a position where we are heading towards the European
average.
Q624 Rob Marris: You also said something
earlier which I confess I did not really understand. You talked
about apprenticeships being employer led and demand led; otherwise,
there is a risk there would be no job for the apprentice upon
completion of the apprenticeship. I thought that was integral
to what I understood an apprenticeship to be. I did the legal
equivalent of an apprenticeship. It was called Articles. I did
two years of Articles in a law office sitting at the foot of a
master and then got a job at the end of it from that firm. How
could you have an apprenticeship without significant employer
involvement? I do not quite understand.
Bill Rammell: In any apprenticeship
you need employer involvement. The point I am trying to make is
that—
Q625 Rob Marris: Will it not perforce
be employer led or demand led?
Bill Rammell: It will, but it
needs to be led by genuine demand. The point I was trying to make
is if you simply expend 110% effort to encourage employers to
commit to an apprenticeship even though there is not a prospect
at the end of that programme that someone will move into a job,
it is going to be less successful than if you are genuinely identifying
those areas of industry where there is a flow through and a shortfall
of skilled employees and the apprenticeship route can not only
be about training someone but leading them into a successful career.
Q626 Rob Marris: Why would an employer
offer an apprenticeship like that? Would it be cheap labour? Why
train someone to be an electrician for two years and say, "We
do not have a job for you here now you are a full time electrician.
Sorry"? Why would an employer go down that route? Is cheap
labour still going on?
Bill Rammell: There are financial
incentives that we build into the system to encourage employers
to engage but the point we are making is that we need to ensure
that there is a quality product at the end of it.
Q627 Rob Marris: Do all apprenticeships
under modern apprenticeship schemes involve an employer, or am
I missing something here?
Bill Rammell: Yes.
Q628 Mr Bone: Do you really think,
Minister, that employers get any benefit from the cheap labour
of an apprenticeship? Do you really think that?
Mr Rammell: No, I am sorry, that
is not what I was suggesting.
Q629 Mr Hoyle: Can I just move on?
Part of the key proposals of the Leitch Report is that the Sector
Skills Councils should be able to control which vocational courses
receive public money. We have received evidence from various groups
including the chemical and pharmaceutical industries who claim
that UK graduates in chemistry do not have the practical experience
that is needed to work in those industries. The big question is:
will the Leitch recommendation cover university courses that are
vocational in nature? Where do you draw the line between vocational
and academic courses, and what role should the employers have
in the latter?
Mr Rammell: Do we need Sector
Skills Councils to be engaging with higher education and, frankly,
vice versa? Yes, we do. If we are honest, the contact between
universities and the Sector Skills Councils is variable and it
certainly needs to improve. Do we need more joint initiatives
through things like foundation degrees? Yes, emphatically, we
do, and the Sector Skills Councils are going to be working with
providers to develop those programmes. We have also got examples
of working with Foundation Degree Forward, the body that promotes
foundation degrees, and Sector Skills Councils in developing what
are called foundation degree frameworks which help tailor a foundation
degree towards specific sectors. All of that is positive. However,
I am not advocating that we go as far as giving the Sector Skills
Councils a veto on the higher education qualification. I say that
for good reason: whilst I do not claim that universities in this
country are perfect, I think that one of the things that has led
to their strength is the degree of autonomy where the degree-awarding
power comes through the privy council; they can develop their
organisation according to their specialism, according to their
mission. If you look at the international comparisons, our universities
are regarded in much higher esteem than many elsewhere in the
world, and it is that issue of autonomy that I think has very
much led to that situation. So whilst we need much more evidence
of universities moving towards businesses, and we will financially
incentivise that, I am not convinced that you should go as far
as saying, as the FSC says: "You can have that qualification;
you cannot have that one".
Q630 Mr Hoyle: Will there be extra
funding going into workplace degrees?
Mr Rammell: Yes, there will. My
very clear view is that the big future expansion of higher education
in this country is going to be in the field of work-based learning.
We are already trialling a higher education dimension of the Train
to Gain initiative. We have also, through the HEFCE grant letter,
written to universities and said: "If you have initiatives,
ideas, on a co-financing proposal to deliver higher education
in the workplace with an employer, we want to hear from you".
Q631 Chairman: Minister, we would
love to have gone on. There are many other issues that have been
raised in answers which we would like to have explored at greater
length, but I think we have got what we needed out of this session.
We are extremely grateful to you and to your silent colleagues
for a very informative session. Thank you very much indeed.
Mr Rammell: Thank you.
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