The answer is more apprenticeships and more reform – now what’s the question?
21 November 2016
A system of any extreme is unlikely to deliver the right outcomes for individuals, employers or the economy, says Gemma Gathercole, OCR’s Head of Policy for FE and Funding, in this blog for FE Week.
There can be little doubt that apprenticeships are the hot topic of the skills world, but recent events and reports have shown us there is still little consensus on what our apprenticeship system should ultimately look like.
I’ve been thinking about apprenticeship policy through the lens of two letters: QP. These letters represent three essential questions for the sector right now: Question of Priority, Question of Purpose and Question of Position.
On the question of priority, apprenticeships have never been higher, but we’re risking here distorting our skills system so that apprenticeships are the only answer. Part of the issue can be seen from the general decline in employer investment in training, as cited by Sajid Javid in the 2015 apprenticeship levy consultation from the then Department for Business Innovation and Skills. But a secondary issue that has contributed to the decline is the limited availability and/or general removal of government investment in this type of learning. The conversion of grant funding to loans has presided over a general decline in the offer of higher level courses. In fact as recently as July this year, individuals wanting to access this type of training would have had to self-fund. It was only at the start of this funding year that courses at levels 5 and 6 could be funded by an advanced learner loan.
On the question of purpose, there has been some discussion about what sort of apprenticeship system these reforms will deliver. But perhaps part of the confusion is the term apprenticeship itself. Do we as a nation share a common understanding of what an apprenticeship is? For some it’s still a traditional indemnity to an employer, to others it’s the worst example of the misuse of the system and for others still, it’s too indelibly linked to qualifications. If we take it back to core principles, it’s a job with training. We must remember that jobs with training allow progression from beginner to competence in a particular role. But the journey shouldn’t stop there.
The system should be individual-led rather than employer-led. Potential learners and/or apprentices are the consumer for this form of training and should have the ability to select for themselves the type of training they want to undertake. After all, if they are co-invested in the system and have to pay back some of that training, they should have the same decision offered to university students: follow a course that leads to a job/career; or follow a course they are interested in, but which may not necessarily lead directly to a job. While the person specification for my current job stated a requirement for a degree, it did not specify the subject. If this is a suitable outcome for the ‘academic’ track then the ‘technical’ track should not limit a learner’s outcome either. For those keeping track – that’s the third and final QP, the question of position: how and where does it lead?
And of position, a system of any extreme – employer only, government only, awarding organisation only – is highly unlikely to deliver the right outcomes for individuals, employers and the economy. The government is right to want to put employers at the heart of the system, but to suggest that this is the first time that has been the case is naïve. Taking the theme of David Hughes’ opening speech to the AoC Conference, I want to focus on a positive. In order to deliver effective apprenticeships, reform and the broader technical agenda, we need a position where the expertise of all aspects of our system is respected, we need to work together to get the best possible outcomes.
The Skills Plan will fail if it isn’t sufficiently embedded in curriculum choices before 16 and critically in parents’ and employers’ minds so young people are supported to make those choices. In the end, that will make the government priority of 3 million starts incredibly easy to achieve as apprenticeships will be a destination of choice, rather than the thing that other people’s children do.