Quality of Apprenticeships is the key
10 Oct 2011
The government should prioritise the creation of high-level Apprenticeships rather than “diluting the brand” by seeking quantity over quality, employers and experts agreed at the WorldSkills international event in London.
Addressing the event at the Excel centre, which featured thousands of entrants from around the world demonstrating their skills in a wide range of industries, business secretary Vince Cable announced an investment of £20 million to boost skills in key industries such as nuclear manufacturing, hospitality and renewable energy. The sum includes £11 million of government-matched funding under bids to the Growth Innovation Fund that will help employers create more Apprenticeships and links with education and training providers.
Cable sounded a warning that the UK “does not have an internationally competitive skills base” and pointed out that it sits 19th out of 34 developed nations in the OECD index for skills above GCSE level. The government is “targeting money where it best placed to drive growth,” he said.
Top employers on a discussion panel following his speech welcomed the new investment and called for an approach that would see high quality qualifications and training prioritised.
Terry Morgan, chairman of Crossrail, said: “I cannot tell you how pleased I was to hear the Secretary of State talk about the importance of creating quality Apprenticeships. I hear of some apprentice schemes that last only six weeks – who are you kidding? When I started out as an apprentice my training lasted five years – and that is the way it should be. We need high-skilled, high quality Apprenticeships with a strong competency framework in place. If we do any worse than that then the brand [of Apprenticeships] is at risk.”
Steve Holliday, chief executive of National Grid, agreed with him and said that there was a danger that the word Apprenticeship had become a “catch-all” term and that something might be lost in pursuit of quantity targets. “There is a lot of talk of ‘let’s get a million new Apprenticeships’ but in my view it would be better to create 500,000 quality ones than a million for its own sake,” said Holliday.
All the panellists agreed that more needed to be done to communicate the advantages of Apprenticeships both to young people and to their parents, with the latter often favouring the university route.
Source: People Management