A roundtable event held by the Employers Forum on Age highlighted the problems surrounding apprenticeships. Colin Cottell reports
Last week was a good week for apprenticeships, following the launch of the Co-operative Group’s new Apprentice Academy that is expected to create 2,000 jobs over the next three years.
But the landscape for apprenticeship programmes remains shrouded in challenges such as age-related funding, take-up by both genders and the status of vocational education when compared to university degree programmes, for even the UK’s largest employers. Those issues were among the key concerns of employers including BT, George, IBM and Pearson who participated last week in an Employers Forum on Age (EFA) roundtable, chaired by Recruiter editor DeeDee Doke.
The involvement of such household name firms with apprenticeships, and a 16% rise in apprenticeship starts in 2009/10, suggests they are on the up. However, Kevin Bowsher, equality and inclusion manager at the Olympic Delivery Authority, told the group the numbers of apprenticeships would receive a further boost if targets for different sectors were set, possibly by the government. He said this works with the ODA, where contractors are contractually obliged to provide a certain number of apprenticeships.
Many layers of bureaucracy and red tape go hand-in-hand with setting up an apprenticeship scheme, said Jenny Taylor, IBM’s UK graduate and student programme manager. “You have to get accreditation and funding, and there are so many different parties to get involved with,” she said. IBM launched its first ever apprenticeship scheme last November.
However, Jessie Buscombe, employer services director at the National Apprenticeship Service, suggested that smalland medium-sized companies found the process more straightforward than large ones. She said that more SMEs than large companies actually offer apprenticeships, although they typically take on fewer than large organisations. She added: “The market failure is with the large employers.”
Sian Hughes, employment and skills manager women’s project at the ODA, said that reduced funding for apprentices over a certain age (see Key Facts) was a particular problem when it came to attracting women into construction because women tend to enter the industry later than men. “Contractors want to take on women in the industry but without the funding they can’t”, when they come in at entry level with no experience, Hughes said. Contractors must focus their own budget spend on experienced help, she explained.
Contractors want to take on women in the industry but without the funding they can’t, when they come in at entry level with no experience
However, for large employers such as George at Asda, which already dedicates a significant spend to apprenticeships, the availability of government funding was not a deciding factor in determining how many apprentices were taken on. Joanne Ratcliffe, head of people at George at Asda, said: “If there were more funding for older apprentices, it wouldn’t mean that we took on more apprentices. We have customers to serve, and can only take on a certain number [of apprentices overall], and if we took on more that would dilute the quality” of training and mentoring the apprentices would receive.
Ratcliffe said that a key challenge was getting ’buy-in’ from parents. IBM’s Taylor, agreed this was a particular problem for technology companies when the apprentices were young women. “They go home excited and their mother says ’you don’t want to do that’,” she said.
Abu Bundu-Kumara, diversity manager at Pearson, said that because of cost, apprentice salaries were a particular concern of SMEs. In London particularly, they find it difficult to compete with large employers who pay more then the current £2.50 an hour National Minimum Wage.
“We pay a higher salary because we want the best people. We are all in competition with one another,” said Dennis Gissing, BT’s head of diversity practice.
Brad Coales, deputy head of London Workforce Development, suggested that SMEs could reduce the cost of apprentices by sharing them with other companies, by using apprentice training agencies. These operate like recruitment agencies, where the apprentices are employed by the agency and not the SMEs.
Shazia Fletcher from the apprenticeship unit at the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) told the forum that the government was aware of the issues raised in the forum, and was working to address them. However, she said the bigger picture was engaging with employers who were not involved with apprenticeships at all.
Apprenticeships undoubtedly have a lot going for them, for both employers and those attracted to gaining skills while earning a wage. That said, they have some way to go before they are the finished article.
The next EFA-Recruiter roundtable, set for 6 July, will focus on access to work and young people who fall in the NEET category (Not in Education, Employment or Training), the homeless and other disadvantaged people.
keyfacts
- More than 190 types of apprenticeships
- Nearly 90,000 employers in England offer apprentices
- A minimum of 16 hours per week paid employment
- National Minimum Wage for apprentices £2.50 an hour
- Average salary £170 a week
- Age 16 upwards no upper age limit
- 2009/10 apprenticeship starters: 279,700 16% up on 2008/09
The National Apprentice Service covers the cost of training as follows:
Age 16-18 up to 100%
Age 19-24 up to 50%
Age 25+ contribution for specified places
Source: The National Apprenticeship Service
Hayes aims for half a million apprentices News | Published in FE Focus on 1 July, 2011 | By: Stephen Exley
He wants to reach goal before next election - beating Gordon Brown’s 2020 target
The number of apprentices in England could hit the 500,000 mark before the next general election, skills minister John Hayes has claimed.
After it was announced last week that the Government had created 103,000 new adult apprenticeships in 2010/11 - double its 50,000 target - the minister told FE Focus that he hoped to continue expanding the programme.
Mr Hayes said he was keen to see Government FE policy “defined” by the apprenticeship programme, by increasing opportunities for workers with both low-level and high-level skills.
He insisted there was a genuine opportunity to create 500,000 apprenticeships - the target set by Gordon Brown, then chancellor of the exchequer, in 2007 - but said this could be delivered before the next general election, at least five years earlier than Labour’s 2020 aim.
“It was (Brown’s) biggest ambition, a long-term aim; something he dreamt of, rather than expected to achieve,” Mr Hayes said.
“If we maintain this momentum, if we can keep it going, I think we can achieve that in the lifetime of this Government, on my watch.”
Provisional figures published by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) show that 257,000 adult apprenticeships were delivered in 2010/11 - well above its 203,000 target.
A BIS spokesman confirmed that the figures included learners who had previously been on the Train to Gain scheme, which officially closes at the end of this month.
Mr Hayes said: “The numbers I wasn’t aware of, but I knew … it was going well.”
He praised colleges for picking up the Government’s targets “extremely quickly”.
“They were always well equipped to do that, but they have never had the opportunity before.
“I always felt there was a latent demand, which is now manifest, with the sharp change in numbers.
“National Apprenticeship Week was bigger than it’s ever been before; it has had more coverage than it ever got before.
“I have worked hard to change the status of apprenticeships and raise the profile of apprenticeships,” he added.
Mr Hayes said he would make further announcements about developing level 5 advanced apprenticeships “to sit comfortably alongside higher education”, as well as the “access to apprenticeships” scheme as a “vehicle for re- engagement” for learners without the necessary entry qualifications.
The minister added that his ambition was to make apprenticeships an “option of choice”, with the same profile as traditional academic qualifications such as A-levels, GCSEs and degrees.
The Government is also looking to increase the number of apprenticeships in fields which have not proved popular, such as advanced manufacturing, creative industries and information systems technology.
Lynne Sedgmore, executive director of the 157 Group of large FE colleges, said: “The significant growth in apprenticeships is testament to the success of colleges and employers working together to help young people and adults gain the skills that are in demand and prepare them for the jobs that will help boost our economy. These figures offer real cause for celebration.”
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