George Osborne used the start of the Conservative conference to announce the creation of three million apprenticeships during the next parliament. The pledge comes days after the Labour leader included a “massively expanded” apprenticeship programme as part of his six-point plan for a new government. Ed Miliband said he wanted to see as many young people doing an apprenticeship by 2025 as those going to university – a variation on David Cameron’s previous statement that all young people should have a choice between the two.
Westminster’s commitment to growing the apprenticeship programme is great, but it would be a mistake for politicians to promote apprenticeships and university as the only two options for young people, especially when there are other routes such as the traineeship scheme.
And both parties need to be careful about chasing targets and inflicting legislative mandates on employers to help meet them. Labour has proposed that winning government contracts should be tied to offering apprenticeships. While this is a nice idea in the sense that it encourages a more positive approach in companies to training staff, it’s not something that should be used as a quota.
As we have seen in the past, such measures have put the quality of provision in jeopardy. A couple of years ago, government rhetoric was focused on the speed with which the scheme was expanding, but investigations into the quality of training at some companies changed this and resulted in the government deciding it was necessary to require all apprenticeships to last the minimum of a year. Recently, providers have been achieving consistently high Ofsted grades. The scheme is going from strength to strength and I would hate to see the government derail this. Driving growth from legislation simply causes too great a risk of apprenticeships being created for the wrong reasons.
In his speech, Miliband proposed a major increase in the number of apprenticeships in local and national government, government agencies and the NHS. This is a good idea, but we also need to simplify the funding system and invest more in support for companies if we want to generate growth.
Furthermore, while I understand that both parties want to focus on creating more opportunities for young people, an all-age, all-level and all-sector apprenticeship programme must be retained. This will ensure that older people who want to retrain in a new career have the opportunity to do so. The latest official data for 2013-14 shows that the proportion of young people on apprenticeships is on the increase, but a significant proportion are still adults – 32% – showing that they offer a real benefit to older people as well.
After the Scottish independence referendum, all political parties will go into the general election reviewing the benefits of devolving responsibilities for skills and employability programmes to local authorities and local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) in England. And there are calls for sector bodies to have a say on how the apprenticeship budget is allocated. Finding a solution that satisfies learners’ and employers’ interests will not be easy, but core employability schemes like traineeships, the work programme and apprenticeships must all be part of a coherent national strategy. And we must not go back to using numbers as a signal for success. No amount of apprenticeships will address long-term unemployment figures if they fail to provide learners with a decent learning experience.
Stewart Segal is chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, members of which train approximately 75% of England’s apprentices.
