To succeed as a knowledge economy, we need people to engage in lifelong learning. And more people need the high-level skills required for personal prosperity and economic growth. It is right that some of these skills should be developed by educating people in the workplace, in collaboration with employers.
So I welcome the development of higher- and degree-level apprenticeships and would be delighted if they led to an expansion of high-quality professional and technical education. However, there is a danger that, by creating yet another range of qualifications, we will fail to build on what already exists and may even weaken some of the best bits of our current professional education provision.
From April 2017, employers with a wage bill over £3m will have to pay an apprenticeships levy, effectively a tax of 0.5% on the wage bill. As the name suggests, they will be expected to fund apprenticeships through the levy – but only official apprenticeships, as defined by the government.
There is a risk that many employers will get around the rule by simply moving their existing staff training into the apprenticeships model. This could lead to lots of renaming but little actual increase in the overall number of people training and not much improvement in the supply of technical and higher-level skills.
Organic growth
Ministers seem to have forgotten that universities and employers have a long history of working together to deliver professional and technical education. Organisations in both the public and private sectors have been major funders of vocational higher education, which has grown organically as a result of genuine demand.
The Open University on its own has more than 12,000 students sponsored by the public sector and other employers. The top 10 institutions for employer-sponsored students together have more than 64,000 sponsored places.
In many respects, employer-sponsored degrees are the gold standard for delivering this kind of education, and this is shown by research we commissioned from London Economics that is included in my new pamphlet for the Higher Education Policy Institute published today.
The research shows that employer-sponsored degrees benefit all concerned: they deliver for students, who can graduate free from debt and they deliver for employers, who get the skills they need as well as loyal staff. They work for universities too, as they benefit from being closer to local businesses. Finally, they are nearly six times cheaper for taxpayers.
At London South Bank University, we are excited about higher and degree apprenticeships and look forward to delivering around 20 programmes from this September. But I also believe in the benefits of employer-sponsored degrees, and worry that apprenticeships will enjoy privileged – rather than equal – status as a result of the levy. Indeed, by excluding employer-sponsored degrees from levy funding, the government will disadvantage this cost-effective, high-quality and well-established model of technical education in favour of a newer, unproven one.
This risks driving thousands of employers to undertake a costly move to higher and degree apprenticeships just to benefit from their own levy funding. This route will be determined in Whitehall rather than through the choice of what is best for the local businesses involved. As a result, I believe employers should be allowed to use their apprenticeship levy funds to support employer-sponsored degrees as well as apprenticeships.
This would avoid costly cannibalisation and the risk that the system nudges employers away from supporting higher-quality skills development asa result of the practical difficulties posed by the system. The government are right to want employers to take more of a lead on training. But it is folly to force them down one path, rather than to let them choose the best training options for them.
Join the higher education network for more comment, analysis and job opportunities, direct to your inbox. Follow us on Twitter @gdnhighered. And if you have an idea for a story, please read our guidelines and email your pitch to us at highereducationnetwork@theguardian.com
