Clause
8
Sufficient
relevant training or
education
Question
proposed, That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
Mr.
Hayes:
It is appropriate to say a word or two about the
clause standing part because, according to the explanatory
notes:
“Clause
8 provides that, if a person fulfils the duty to participate by working
and pursuing part time education or training towards an accredited
qualification, then the training provided by a person’s
employer, or any other education or training towards accredited
qualifications, must be equivalent to 280 guided learning
hours”.
The phrase that
matters is “guided learning
hours”.
The
Committee heard from Professor Lorna Unwin during the evidence
sessions, and I recommend her work to you and the Committee,
Mr. Bercow. She is an authority on training and particularly
on apprenticeships. She told the Committee that some apprenticeships
contain little or no guided or mentored workplace learning. That is a
shocking fact. Who would believe that an
apprenticeship can be worthy of its name if it is not mentored, does not
contain a workplace element or is not
employer-engaged? To
be fair to the Minister and the Government, they have recently issued
an apprenticeship review, which I have critiqued—as you will
know, Mr. Bercow, because I sent you a copy. That review
suggests provision for a statutory definition of what constitutes an
apprenticeship. That is something that I have called for, as the
Minister with responsibility for skills acknowledged before the
publication of the review. It would be an important point of progress.
I presume that that definition will include a minimum baseline
requirement for workplace training, mentoring and—by
definition—employer
engagement.
It is
critical that the Bill reflects the Government’s change
commitment. I do not blame the Minister that that provision is not in
it because it was drawn up before the review was published. However, he
could reflect on whether thought needs to be given to guided learning
hours to bring it into line with current Government thinking.
I want to say a little more
about Lorna Unwin. Professor Unwin told the Committee that
sometimes
“the employer
does not really play any role in the actual training for a number of
apprenticeships. What is happening—this links again to the
concept of the competence-based NVQ—the training provider goes
into the employer’s premises and assesses the young person
against the competences and the key skills, and perhaps even having the
apprenticeships for their off-the-job training in the training
provider’s premises. I meet many employers whose role is
entirely that of employer, in the sense that the young person is there
to do a job of work.”——[Official Report,
Education and Skills Public Bill Committee, 24 January 2008; c.
106, Q270.]
In other words,
there is a gap between their role as an employer and their role as an
organisation assisting with the training of young people. The Bill goes
some way to bridging that gap by creating new duties, but we need to be
absolutely clear what guided learning hours mean in this
context.
Jim
Knight:
To help the hon. Gentleman, the clause does not
apply to apprenticeships. It is about part-time education and training
alongside full-time
work.
Mr.
Hayes:
I am grateful to the Minister.
That is helpful, but it does not entirely deal with the issue about
what constitutes guided learning hours. I am pleased that
apprenticeships themselves are not included, but Lorna Unwin’s
work deals with training in a broader sense. I referred in particular
to apprenticeships, but her work deals with all kinds of training.
National vocational qualifications are part of that package. I suspect
that many of the young we are dealing with, who are some of the most
disadvantaged and challenging of young people, will first find
themselves in pre-apprenticeship training. That might include a range
of NVQ options because to get on to a full apprenticeship without that
training will simply not be possible because of their competences. I
take the Minister’s point, but it is not an entire answer to the
argument advanced by Professor
Unwin.
Professor Unwin
argues that many employers are providing perfectly acceptable work
placements, but are not necessarily engaged in substantive training. It
will therefore be for the Minister to explain to the Committee how the
Government will judge what constitutes guided learning hours. The
phrase “guided learning hours” suggests training that is
directed and mentored, be it at apprenticeship, pre-apprenticeship or
sub-apprenticeship level. Surely all training should involve systematic
workplace training under a skilled mentor. The experience of the
trainee in the workplace should not simply be a work placement. We
cannot just put people into workplaces and assume that that includes,
implicitly, a level of training. I wish the Minister would enlighten
the Committee on how the Government will ensure that this aspect of the
Bill is effected in a way that benefits both employers and, more
especially in this context,
trainees.
Mr.
Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con): It is important that we
ensure that training for young people, even at entry level, trains them
for future career advancement. I would not like to see a sort of
tick-box mentality to training where young people leave school at 16,
work at a cash till for two years with no prospect of career
advancement, and a training certificate is produced at the end of it to
keep the authorities happy. Although they will have learned important
skills from having to go into work, such as arriving on time,
interacting with colleagues, getting up in the morning and being
punctual, it is not entirely clear that they will have a skill that
they can go on to leverage into future careers and future jobs. I hope
that the Minister can also respond to those brief
points.
Jim
Knight:
The clause specifies the number of hours that a
young person must spend participating in guided learning, and defines
the latter. I point the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings
to subsection (3), which states that a person is in “actual
guided learning” if they
are
“being taught or
given instruction by a lecturer, tutor, supervisor or other appropriate
provider of training or education, or...otherwise participating in
education or training under the immediate guidance or supervision of
such a person, but does not include time spent on unsupervised
preparation or study, whether at home or
otherwise”.
We
want such training to be accredited, because we want to ensure that it
is useful. Some would argue that we could accredit any old thing. We
must ensure that that is not the case and that accredited training
helps people to get on and to improve their skill levels, rather than
keep them where they are and give them certificates for the hell of
it.
We
have debated the importance of accrediting training undertaken by young
people alongside employment. That training needs to be for a period
sufficient to lead to an accredited qualification to help young people
to make progress in their careers, adapt to changes in the labour
market and provide skills demanded by employers and the economy. We
regard 280 hours a year as the minimum time that a young person needs
to achieve a further qualification by the time that they are 19. That
equates to roughly a day a week over the course of a year, although the
Bill does not prescribe that it must be delivered in that way. As ever,
we want to be flexible. Participating for less than an average of a day
a week would reduce a young person’s likelihood of achieving a
worthwhile accredited qualification.
Without clause 8 there would be
no minimum participation requirement for those young people undertaking
part-time training alongside employment. It also provides the
definition of guided learning, which I read out, and which is also
needed for clause 5 to clarify the type of learning in which young
people must participate alongside employment to fulfil their duty under
clause 2. Without clause 8 we could not ensure that young people access
appropriate learning for the amount of time necessary to gain an
accredited
qualification.
That
provision will not normally apply to apprenticeships, because they are
normally full-time. To reassure the hon. Member for South Holland and
The Deepings, programme-led apprenticeships will not count towards the
target of expanding apprenticeships that we announced. A person will be
counted only after he or she has a contract of employment.
Programme-led apprenticeships will be a useful pre-entry route for some
young people. The 90,000 extra apprenticeships that we want to develop
as we bring in this duty must involve a contract of
employment.
Mr.
Hayes:
I do not want to digress into apprenticeships, for
you would not allow me to do so, Mr. Bercow. I used
apprenticeships as an example owing to the doubts supported by evidence
and expressed by a number of people that in those programmes—not
only programme-led apprenticeships, but level 2 and 3
apprenticeships—there was insufficient mentoring and guided
learning. If that applied to apprenticeships, would it not apply all
the more so to other training? I think that the Minister has made it
clear that the Bill sets out a series of parameters. However, to be
even more helpful, how will that vary according to the size of
companies and sectors? Clearly different sectors of the workplace have
different imperatives and that it will be a much greater imposition on
very small companies than on very large
ones.
Jim
Knight:
There would be some flexibility, but in the end
all would have to be accredited. Accreditation must ensure that all the
factors have been got right and allow for the flexibility to appreciate
the different sectors. We are expanding the number of occupation
sectors to which apprenticeships would apply, some of which will by
necessity provide much more practical training, as he said. That is for
the accreditation to
define.
1.30
pm
Angela
Watkinson (Upminster) (Con): On a point of clarification.
I may have misunderstood the clause, or not read it clearly enough, but
is it possible that a young person could fulfil their obligations in
respect of this legislation by undertaking 280 hours of guided
learning, which, if we use a 40-week school year, equates to one day a
week, without doing anything else? In the Minister’s previous
comments, he made it clear that the young person should also be
undertaking another occupation. I may not have understood it clearly
enough, but I wonder whether the clause can be interpreted as meaning
that the young person had totally fulfilled their obligations by doing
280 hours and nothing else.
Jim
Knight:
No, the way the Bill is drafted means that that
section refers to those who are in full-time employment, but fulfilling
their duty by also taking on part-time education or training. I hope
that that is helpful. On that basis, I hope that the Committee is happy
to agree the
clause.
Question
put and agreed
to.
Clause 8
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause
9
Assignment
of numbers of hours of guided learning to external
qualifications
Question
proposed, That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
Mr.
Nick Gibb (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con): Will the
Minister explain to the Committee the purpose of the clause and why it
is that we need the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority to assign a
number of guided hours to every qualification? Is it to fulfil the
functions in clause 8 so that we know whether a particular
qualification requires 280 hours of guided learning? Will it,
therefore, apply to all existing QCA accredited qualifications, or will
it apply just to new qualifications? The clause does not make that
clear. It
states:
“Any
accreditation of a qualification under paragraph (g) of subsection (2)
must assign to the qualification a number of notional
hours”.
It is not clear
to me whether that phrase requires the QCA to go through all several
hundred qualifications, in which case could the Minister say how many
qualifications are to be assigned those hours and what the cost to the
QCA would be? If the exercise is being conducted solely because of
clause 8, it is a very large commitment for the QCA to undertake simply
to fulfil one part of a Bill. If it is just new qualifications that are
to be assigned hours as part of the accreditation process, that begs
the question of how clause 8 will be fulfilled. How can people use
existing qualifications that do not have notional hours assigned to
them? An explanation from the Minister will be very
helpful.
Jim
Knight:
It is important that guided
learning hours are assigned to all qualifications so that it is easy
and clear for young people in full-time employment and their employers
to tell whether they are doing enough training to fulfil the duty to
participate. The QCA already assigns guided learning hours as part of
its accreditation process, but it is not legally required to do so. The
clause ensures that guided learning hours will continue to be assigned
to qualifications in the future. In answer to the hon.
Gentleman’s question, the QCA already does it in relation to all
the qualifications that it accredits. Therefore, we know the number of
guided learning hours for existing qualifications. By law, the QCA will
have to do it for all new qualifications. I think, therefore, the
issues of consistency and of burden are addressed for him.
The definition of sufficient
part-time training in clause 8 relies on guided learning hours being
assigned to qualifications. Therefore, it is important to put beyond
doubt that that will continue to happen. The clause must stand part of
the Bill and I, therefore, ask the Committee to agree
it.
Mr.
Gibb:
Given that the QCA already assigns guided learning
hours, why is it necessary to legislate? I do not see why the Minister
thinks that the QCA will not continue to assign notional hours as part
of the accreditation
process.
Jim
Knight:
On one level, I could expect the QCA to continue
do so, but, given that it is fundamental to the design of the
legislation that it should do so, it seems as well to legislate to
ensure that it happens by statute rather than by my encouragement.
However, I do that confident in the notion that the QCA has already
assigned notional hours as part of the accreditation process for
pre-existing qualifications, so there will be no problems with the
inheritance of that responsibility. The QCA does it now, and it will be
done in the
future.
Question
put and agreed to.
Clause
9
ordered to stand part of the Bill.
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