4 Apprenticeships for young people
120. Employment with training will be one of the
ways in which young people can meet their obligation, under the
Education and Skills Act 2008, to take part in education or training
up until the age of 18. A standard model for such provision is
an Apprenticeship. For some, as we noted in paragraph 61, this
will be the preferred option, as it will provide a salary as well
as a way of improving skills.
The characteristics of Apprenticeships
121. Whereas businesses can and do offer their own,
self-funded apprenticeship schemes, there has been a resurgence
of publicly-funded Apprenticeships in recent years, and both this
Government and its predecessors have put considerable effort into
promoting the brand and stimulating the supply of Apprenticeship
places. This Government describes Apprenticeships as its "flagship
skills programme and a key route for raising the participation
age in learning".[208]
The essentials of publicly-funded Apprenticeships are:
- A blend of work-based and theoretical
learning for an employee (either a new recruit or an existing
employee), with no upper age limit
- Normally 30 hours or more paid employment per
week, but with a minimum of 16 hours
- A training element amounting to at least 280
guided learning hours per year, of which at least 100 hours or
30% (whichever is the greater) must be delivered off the job and
must be "clearly evidenced"[209]
- Training can be provided by a college, a training
provider or by the employer itself
- Public funding is provided, via the National
Apprenticeship Service, for the training element (100% of costs
for Apprentices aged 16-18; up to 50% for older apprentices)
The costs to the employer include salary (the National
Apprenticeship Service cites research from 2008 indicating an
average salary for Apprentices of £170 per week)[210]
and the costs of supervision, support and mentoring.
122. Apprenticeships are available at three levels:
- Intermediate Apprenticeships
(leading to a qualification equivalent to five good GCSE passes)
- Advanced Apprenticeships (equivalent to two A
Level passes)
- Higher Apprenticeships, which work towards (for
instance) NVQ Level 4 qualifications.[211]
123. Apprenticeship frameworks (setting out high-level
curricula) and apprenticeship standards (setting out the standards
to which frameworks must conform) were established on a statutory
basis by the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act
2009. The Act also put in place a duty on the Chief Executive
of Skills Funding to secure the availability of apprenticeship
places "in sufficient number and variety" for there
to be suitable places for every suitably qualified young person
who wants one. However, provisions within the Education Bill now
before Parliament would replace that duty with a requirement to
prioritise funding for young people who have secured an apprenticeship
place. The Government argues that the power to offer Apprenticeships
lies with employers rather than with the Chief Executive of Skills
Funding, and that therefore the revised duty would be more realistic.[212]
124. Both this Government and its predecessor have
sought to increase the number of Apprenticeships offered by employers.
Statistics published shortly before we agreed this Report showed
a substantial growth in Apprenticeship starts in 2009/10 when
compared with 2008/09: 279,700, as opposed to 239,900, representing
an increase of 16.6%. The increase was higher than average for
learners under 19, who registered 116,800 "starts",
17.5% more than in 2008/09. Rates of completion (or "Apprenticeship
framework achievements") also rose from 2008/09 to 2009/10:
there were 171,500 completions in 2009/10, an increase of 19.6%
upon 2008/09. However, the rate of increase in completions by
learners under 19 was rather lower, at 7.9%.[213]
We welcome the latest statistics on Apprenticeships, showing
a major increase in Apprenticeship starts, with growth at all
levels and for both under-19 year olds and 19-24 year olds.
Access to Apprenticeships for
under 19 year olds
125. One of the most striking features of these statistics
is the rise in the number of Apprenticeship starts by learners
under 19, despite a trend, identified by Professor Wolf in her
Review of Vocational Education, for government policy on Apprenticeships
to be targeted increasingly on 18-24 year olds andmore
recentlyon people aged 25 or above. Professor Wolf described
this trend as "very problematic at a time of high youth unemployment
and when the statutory participation age is about to rise".
She noted that "major recruitment efforts" since 2008/09,
when the figures for 16-18 year old Apprentices were especially
low, had reversed the fall overall; but numbers were still in
decline in certain sectors, such as construction.[214]
126. Professor Wolf referred in her report to the
"vanishing youth labour market", not just in England
but across the developed world.[215]
The Minister observed in evidence to us that the number of jobs
you "can get and keep that do not require core skills"
has fallen;[216] and
Professor Unwin took a similar view.[217]
As the Chief Executive of the Association of Colleges said, the
point of entry to the job market "is now presumed to be 19
rather than 16".[218]
127. Mirroring this decline in job opportunities
for 16 to 18 year olds is the steady increase in levels of participation
in education and training post-16, creating a more highly qualified
workforce at 18 (and indeed 21). As a result, employers can raise
the entry standard and still fill vacancies, taking many Apprenticeships
out of reach for 16 and 17 year olds, particularly for those with
low attainment levels.[219]
Professor Wolf noted that Advanced Apprentices at Airbus will
now typically have A levels, and that the average age at which
Apprentices at Network Rail start is now "well over 19".[220]
SEMTA[221] provided
evidence that other employers might be thinking along these lines,
citing the aerospace and nuclear industries.[222]
128. Some employers are not confident in some younger
people's readiness for work, whether because they lack basic language,
communication and arithmetical skills or softer skills such as
teamworking, presentation, customer service, problem solving and
a professional approach. For example, Caroline Blackman, Head
of Organisational Effectiveness at Laing O'Rourke, told us that
some 50% of applicants failed to get through standard aptitude
testing, most failing on numeracy and literacy.[223]
129. Professor Wolf concluded that 16 to 18 year
olds are "extremely ill-served" by the vocational education
system's neglect of mathematics and English, despite these subjects'
"crucial role" in both the labour market and progression
to higher education. She therefore recommended that students who
were under 19 and who had not achieved a GCSE in English and/or
mathematics at A*-C should be required, as part of their learning
programme, "to pursue a course which either leads directly
to these qualifications or which provides significant progress
towards future GCSE entry and success".[224]
The Government, in its response to Professor Wolf's report, agreed
with the essence of her argument and undertook to examine evidence
of good practice among schools, colleges and other providers in
enabling young people to progress to GCSE level qualifications
at 16 or soon after, before publishing its findings and recommendations
by December 2011.[225]
130. Witnesses who gave evidence to our inquiry after
publication of the Government's response to the Wolf Report, on
12 May 2011, and who expressed opinions on the Report, generally
supported it and the Government's response. Martin Doel, Chief
Executive of the Association of Colleges, said that he was particularly
pleased that the recommendation on English and mathematics GCSE
"had been softened somewhat, to attend to the fact that
some young people at 16 won't find English and maths GCSE the
right way forward to engage them".[226]
Martin Ward, Deputy General Secretary of the Association of School
and College Leaders, agreed, saying that over-emphasis on English
and mathematics GCSE, as distinct from numeracy and literacy,
"would not necessarily be helpful".[227]
We welcome the Government's measured response to the recommendation
by Professor Wolf in her review of vocational education that students
under 19 who had not achieved GCSE mathematics and/or English
at grade A*-C should continue to study towards it beyond the age
of 16. We agree that existing good and innovative practice in
provision of English and mathematics courses for these young people
should be assessed before further policy decisions are taken.
131. SEMTA told us that some employers feared that
the Apprenticeship programme, which they used and trusted, might
be changed by the Government to accommodate "low achievers
and the disaffected".[228]
We did not hear or receive evidence to suggest that the Government
was planning to impose upon employers a lower threshold for entry
to Apprenticeships. What the Government has announced is a new
Access to Apprenticeships 'pathway', to enable up to 10,000 vulnerable
young people to benefit from an Apprenticeship.[229]
Mr Hayes told us that
What I want to create is a pathway that is progressive,
rigorous and just as seductive as the academic route that many
of us took. That means moving people from disengagement to engagement
through bite-sized chunks of learning. It means providing access
to apprenticeship courses that then lead to levels 2 and 3 and
beyond.[230]
Fuller details of the Access to Apprenticeship pathway
are to be announced in the autumn.
132. Employers should not be expected to lower
their requirements for entry to Apprenticeships in order to help
meet a Government policy aim. Apprenticeships, if they are to
retain the confidence of employers, should be for those who are
prepared to show commitment, so they should be extended rather
than brief (normally two years minimum); and it is acceptable
for Apprentices to have relatively low rates of pay up until the
completion of their Apprenticeship framework.
Maintaining quality while stimulating
supply
Payments to employers
133. The formal training and accreditation of Apprentices
aged 16 to 18 is publicly funded, and employers pay an hourly
wage whether the Apprentice is at work or training offsite. Professor
Wolf put forward an argument in her report that Apprentices should
be "primarily engaged in learning" and that, as a corollary,
employers should be operating in part as educators and should
therefore be recompensed for this part of their role, directly
or indirectly. She described this as "standard practice in
other countries with large apprenticeship programmes".[231]
Professor Unwin noted that practice in this respect differed
across Europe: in Germany, only a few employers are given extra
funds, and the bulk of them receive no support for training costs.[232]
134. The Government, in its response to Professor
Wolf's report, said that "payments to employers can be an
effective way to encourage them to take on Apprentices" and
that it would assess the costs and benefits involved.[233]
We are doubtful about the merits of such payments, which would
obscure an important principle. We believe that the main motive
for an employer to take on Apprentices should be to make a long-term
investment in their workforce for the benefit of their staff
and for good business reasons. We recommend that the Government
should publish its assessment of the costs and benefits of paying
employers to take on Apprentices, before it decides whether or
not to go ahead. On the existing knowledge base, however, the
Committee does not support the principle of payments to employers
taking on Apprentices.
Programme-led Apprentices and Apprentice Training
Agencies
135. There is very great demand for respected Apprenticeship
programmes. Laing O'Rourke told us that it had received 1,200
applications for its four-year Apprenticeship Plus programme,
and that 31 of these had been taken on.[234]
Network Rail received nearly 8,000 applications in 2010 for 200
Apprenticeships;[235]
and Kwik-Fit told us that its Apprenticeships were oversubscribed
"to the tune of some 4,000 for every 120 places".[236]
The excess of demand over supply led to the development of Programme-led
Apprenticeships: these were classroom-based courses (normally
based in colleges and offered as full-time vocational courses)
conforming to a named Apprenticeship framework. The previous Government
described Programme-led Apprenticeships as "a helpful way
of catering to the demands of prospective Apprentices where there
is not the immediate offer of a job available", and it noted
that this type of provision appealed to some employers "as
it front-loads the sometimes technical preparation for a job".[237]
136. Witnesses to our inquiry expressed support for
Programme-Led Apprenticeships: SEMTA (the sector skills council
for the science, engineering and manufacturing technologies) told
us that Programme Led Apprenticeships enabled employers
to recruit young people who had completed
initial training, thus reducing their costs and also the risk
which comes from recruiting an individual directly into an area
where they have no prior experience
Through PLA, employers
were able to reduce their salary costs and recruit only those
young people who had demonstrated their ability and commitment
to an engineering career by completing the initial training while
receiving the EMA.[238]
Eric Collis, General Manager of the Humberside Engineering
Training Association, told us that the Programme-led Apprenticeship
format allowed his Association to offer "a ready-made, quality-assured
apprentice who we could place with [employers] and we could deal
with all the bureaucracy and all the support systems that need
to be taken care of". He added that the model "was extremely
useful" and said that any decision to stop offering Programme-led
Apprenticeships would, in his area, "reduce the number of
apprentice vacancies overall" and "reduce our penetration
of SMEs".[239]
137. Funding for new Programme Led Apprenticeships
(PLAs) ceased on 6 April 2011. Keith Smith, representing the National
Apprenticeship Service, explained that PLAs did not give the learner
employed status and therefore could not be Apprenticeships under
the terms of the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning
Act 2009.[240] The
Minister, when giving oral evidence, accepted that PLAs "may
have served a purpose in some cases" but said that they "were
not enough like a real job".[241]
Given their nature, it was probably a mistake ever to describe
Programme-led Apprenticeships as a form of apprenticeship: the
title set up an expectation which could not be met.[242]
138. A more recent innovation aimed at soaking up
some of the demand for Apprenticeships is the concept of an apprentice
training agency (ATA). The agency employs the Apprentice, co-ordinates
training and hires them out to employers in order to enable them
to complete the work-based components of their Apprenticeship
framework. These count as Apprenticeships, as the learner has
employed status; but it was suggested to us that they were less
than ideal in that:
There is less commitment to the longer term development
and integration of apprentices from the employers providing work
experience places, which will potentially give rise to the ATA
model being seen as the sort of 'warehousing' approach associated
with youth training schemes during the 1980s ... Rather than working
on behalf of employers, ATAs work on behalf of the Government's
desire to maximise apprenticeship places.[243]
Conclusion
139. The Apprenticeship brand is highly respected
and is seen by young people as offering security, employer commitment
and investment, and a clear pathway to career progression. The
Government should not lose sight of the need to retain quality,
particularly if numbers of Apprentices increase substantially.
We are comforted by the statement made in oral evidence by Mr
Hayes, the Minister with responsibility for further education
and skills, that he recognised the danger of allowing a rapid
growth in the number of Apprenticeships to dilute their quality
and damage the brand, and that he had "absolutely no intention
that that will happen".[244]
140. We welcome the Government's acknowledgement
that driving up numbers of Apprenticeships carries a risk of diluting
their quality. We question whether Apprenticeships offered through
Apprenticeship Training Agencies, where there is no long-term
commitment or investment on the part of the employer offering
the work placement, are of the same quality as work-based Apprenticeships
with a regular employer. We recommend that such opportunities
should be regarded primarily as a form of training and should
be treated separately for statistical purposes.
208 Written memorandum (E 101) to the Public Bill Committee
considering the Education Bill: see http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmpublic/education/memo/educwritev.pdf Back
209
Specification of Apprenticeship Standards for England,
BIS, January 2011 Back
210
Apprenticeship Pay: 2007 Survey of Earnings by Sector, DIUS
Research Report 08/05. The minimum wage for Apprentices is £2.50
per hour for people under 19, or for people 19 or above in their
first year as Apprentice. Back
211
See www.apprenticeships.org.uk Back
212
Written memorandum (E 101) to the Public Bill Committee considering
the Education Bill: see http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmpublic/education/memo/educwritev.pdf Back
213
All figures from Post-16 Education and Skills: learner Participation,
Outcomes and Level of Highest Qualification Held, Quarterly
Statistical First Release, BIS, published 23 June 2011. Figures
relate to academic years. Back
214
Review of Vocational Education by Professor Wolf, March
2011, pages 164-5 Back
215
Review of Vocational Education by Professor Wolf, March
2011, page 24 Back
216
Q 286 Back
217
Q 105 Back
218
Mr Doel Q 190 Back
219
Mr Collis Q 154; also Dr Spielhofer Q 238. See also memorandum
from Central London Connexions, Ev w94, paragraph 24 Back
220
Review of Vocational Education by Professor Wolf, March
2011, page 168 Back
221
The sector skills council for the science, engineering and manufacturing
technologies Back
222
Ev 97 paragraph 14 Back
223
Q 151 and Q 162 Back
224
Review of Vocational Education by Professor Wolf, March
2011, pages 118-9 Back
225
Wolf Review of Vocational Education - Government Response,
published on 12 May 2011 , page 7 Back
226
Q 183 Back
227
Q 184 Back
228
SEMTA, the sector skills council for the science, engineering
and manufacturing technologies, Ev 96, paragraph 6 Back
229
Supporting youth employment, published on 12 May 2011,
HM Government Back
230
Q 325 Back
231
Review of Vocational Education by Professor Wolf, March
2011, page 122 Back
232
Q 136 Back
233
Wolf Review of Vocational Education-Government Response,
Department for Education, 12 May 2011, page 10 Back
234
Q 151 Back
235
Daily Mirror 18 January 2011 Back
236
Q 142 Back
237
World-class Apprenticeships: Unlocking Talent, Building Skills
for All, DIUS/DCSF, 2008 Back
238
Ev 96 paragraph 10 Back
239
Q 173 Back
240
Q 175-6 Back
241
Q 325 Back
242
See oral evidence given by Rt Hon Jim Knight MP and Lord Young
of Norwood Green to the former Children, Schools and Families
Committee on 22 October 2008, published with the Fourth Report
of the Children Schools and Families Committee, The Draft Apprenticeships
Bill, HC 1082 of Session 2007-08. Back
243
Memorandum from Professor Alison Fuller and Professor Lorna Unwin,
Ev 98 Back
244
Q 320 Back
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