Apprenticeship: a key route to skill
CHAPTER 1: Introduction
1. Productivity in Britain continues to lag
behind that of our main European competitors. One important reason
is the large number of workers in Britain who have low skills
and, consequently, low productivity and low pay. Many young people
still fail to acquire any adequate level of skill. Young people
with low skills on the UK labour market are faced with restricted
employment opportunities, and the prospect of a poor quality job.
2. In his evidence to us, Lord Dearing emphasised
the scale of the challenge of educating and training these young
people:
"… if this Committee had been sitting,
say, 150 years ago, it would have been addressing the same issue.
That is how far we are lagging behind countries like Germany and
France in basic skills and in technical knowledge". (Q 370)
3. This issue is increasingly recognised as one
of the most serious problems facing our country. At the end of
2006, a major report from Lord Leitch addressed the skills of
the adult workforce and focussed in particular on skill formation
among adults over 18.[1]
At much the same time, the Department of Education and Skills
(DfES) published the 14-19 Implementation Plan, outlining the
way in which the Diplomas proposed in the 2005 White Paper would
be developed and launched.[2]
These diplomas will be mainly gained by full-time study.
4. Our report seeks to complement these developments
by focusing sharply on an area which has been seriously neglected:
the apprenticeship route, by which young school leavers can gain
a skill while studying part-time rather than full-time—learning
while earning. For very many young people this is a more attractive
route than full-time study, and for employers it guarantees a
supply of labour whose skills are directly relevant to the job
in hand.
5. It has been calculated that by age 25 around
one quarter of the age group in England will have passed through
an apprenticeship. Since over half of those recruited to apprenticeship
are drawn from the 'below Level 2 group'[3]
apprenticeship constitutes an important route to skills for low-skilled
young people. We have therefore focused our inquiry on apprenticeship,
in particular on quality and outcomes, costs and benefits, the
effectiveness of current delivery arrangements and the supply
and demand for apprentices.
1 Leitch Review of Skills, Prosperity for All in
the Global Economy, HM Treasury, 2006 Back
2
Cmnd 6476, 14-19 Education and Skills, February 2005 Back
3
UK level 2 is 5 or more GCSE passes at Grades A*-C, (G)NVQ2 or
vocational equivalent; Scottish equivalent qualifications Back
| 
