______________________________________________________________________________________
Modern Apprenticeships: an
assessment of the Government's
flagship training programme
IoD Policy Paper
____________________________________________________________________
Mike Harris
______________________________________________________________________________________
This policy paper was written by Mike Harris, Policy Research Officer. It was produced by
Lisa Tilsed, Policy Unit Manager.
August 2003
ISBN 1 904520 08 1
Copyright © Institute of Directors 2003
Published by the Institute of Directors
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Contents
1
Introduction and summary
1.1
1.2
1.3
Introduction
Profile of respondents to our survey
Executive summary
2
Apprenticeship in Britain and the development of the
Modern Apprenticeship
2.1
2.2
Apprenticeship: an historical overview
The development of Modern Apprenticeships
3
Modern Apprenticeships: content, delivery, funding and
participation
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
Content
Delivery
Funding
Participation
4
4.1
4.2
4.3
4.4
4.5
4.6
Weaknesses in Modern Apprenticeship provision
5
The use of Modern Apprenticeships in IoD members'
organisations
5.1
5.2
5.3
5.4
5.5
6
6.1
6.2
6.3
Training provision
Attainment
Composition and demand of frameworks
Delivery
Progression
The Government's response
Participation in Modern Apprenticeships
Participation in Modern Apprenticeships by programme: Foundation
and Advanced
Modern Apprenticeship participation by framework
Number of Modern Apprentices employed by IoD members'
organisations
Members' reasons for using Modern Apprenticeships
Modern Apprenticeship recruitment
Method of recruitment
Typical recruiting age for Modern Apprentices
Entry requirements for Modern Apprenticeships
3
5
5
6
7
11
11
18
27
27
28
29
31
33
33
36
38
40
41
42
44
44
46
47
48
50
51
51
52
52
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7
Delivering, supporting and assessing Modern
Apprenticeship programmes in members' organisations
7.1
7.2
7.3
7.4
7.5
Provision of off-the-job training
Arrangement of off-the-job training
Duration of Modern Apprenticeships
Supporting Modern Apprenticeship training
Assessing Modern Apprenticeships: completion rates, skill formation
and business benefits
Completion rates
Non-completion
Skill formation within Modern Apprenticeships
Business benefits gained through participation in Modern
Apprenticeships
7.5.1
7.5.2
7.5.3
7.5.4
8
Non-participation in Modern Apprenticeships
8.1
8.2
8.3
8.4
8.5
Respondents' reasons for not using Modern Apprenticeships
Particular barriers obstructing the recruitment of Modern Apprentices
Particular barriers to Modern Apprenticeship recruitment: further
analysis
Respondents' suggested changes to Modern Apprenticeships
Non-participation: implications and conclusions
9
Conclusion and suggested reforms
4
55
55
56
57
57
59
59
60
61
62
63
63
66
68
71
73
75
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1 Introduction and summary
1.1 Introduction
Modern Apprenticeships (MAs) were launched in 1995, born out of continuing concerns
about the country’s deficiencies in supplying skills at craft, supervisory and technician
(‘intermediate’) level vis-à-vis her economic competitors.1 Although it has only been
operational for eight years, the scheme has already undergone a number of modifications
whilst remaining central to the approach of successive Governments to improving
intermediate level skills. Indeed, the recent Skills Strategy White Paper reaffirmed MAs'
role as the “primary work-based vocational route for young people” and the Government’s
2
intention that 28% of those aged under 22 should participate in the programme by 2004.
The White Paper further reinforced apprenticeship's status as a key component of vocational
educational policy by announcing the removal of the current age cap in order to open MAs to
those aged over 25.
In this paper we review the development of the MA, set it into its historical context and
examine its use among member organisations of the Institute of Directors (IoD).
Encouragingly, previous IoD research has indicated that those members using MAs to train
their staff consider it an effective training scheme and beneficial to their business. However,
the programme also has clear and acknowledged weaknesses. The Government-instigated
Cassels Report, published in 2001, commented that the MA system was “frankly marginal to
the national life” due to the fact that it had been “inconsistently delivered; poorly managed;
1
Intermediate qualifications refer to those attained at Level 3 of the National Qualifications
Framework or qualifications of equivalence (A. Felstead, D. Gallie & F. Green, Work Skills in Britain
1986-2001 (Department for Education and Skills, January 2002), p. 9). The Framework categorises
approved qualifications into five levels:
Level 1 incorporates an NVQ level 1; City and Guilds Foundation/Part 1; RSA other; BTEC First or
General Certificate; GCSEs at grades D-G; and GNVQ foundation.
Level 2 incorporates an NVQ level 2; City and Guilds Craft; RSA diploma; BTEC First or General
Diploma; GNVQ intermediate; and 5 or more GCSEs at grades A*-C.
Level 3 incorporates an NVQ level 3; City and Guilds Advanced Craft/Part 2; RSA Advanced
Diploma; BTEC National; OND/C; GNVQ advanced; and 2 or more A levels.
Level 4 incorporates an NVQ level 4; RSA Higher Diploma; BTEC Higher; HND/C; a first degree;
and teaching and nursing qualifications.
Level 5 incorporates an NVQ level 5 and higher degrees. Source: Developing a National Skills Strategy
and Delivery Plan: Underlying Evidence (Department for Education and Skills, 2003), pp. 34-35.
2
st
21 Century Skills – Realising Our Potential: Individuals, Employers, Nation (Department for Education
and Skills, 2003), p. 79.
5
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3
and poorly known about and understood”. The planned expansion of the MA places even
greater significance upon its defects. Addressing these, we conclude by identifying ways in
which the Government might act to strengthen MA provision.
1.2 Profile of respondents to our survey
NOP Business interviewed 500 IoD members on behalf of the IoD’s Policy Unit in March
2003. The sample used and the number of telephone interviews that took place were
structured to reflect the composition of the IoD’s membership profile in terms of
organisation size (number of employees), economic sector and geographical location. After
interviewing, weighting takes place to correct any imbalance in the sample and to ensure the
results are representative of the IoD’s membership. The profile of those IoD members who
took part in this survey is shown in the tables below.
Table 1a:
4
Profile of respondents by firm size
Number of employees
1-20
21-100
101-200
201 or over
Table 1b:
Percentage of respondents
36% (180)
32% (160)
10% (50)
22% (110)
Profile of respondents by industry
Economic sector
Business and professional services
Manufacturing
Financial services
Government, education, health and personal services
Distribution
Other (including construction, mining and transport)
Table 1c:
Percentage of respondents
32% (160)
21% (105)
13% (65)
12% (60)
11% (55)
11% (55)
Profile of respondents by geographical location5
Region
North
Midlands
South
Percentage of respondents
23% (115)
19% (95)
58% (290)
3
Modern Apprenticeships: The Way to Work. The Report of the Modern Apprenticeship Advisory Committee
(Department for Education and Skills, September 2001), p. 13.
4
The number of directors is given in brackets. Percentages are rounded throughout this research
paper and therefore may add to just over or under 100%. Absolute figures and percentages aggregated
across sub-samples may not add exactly to the total or 100% due to weighting.
5
In this survey, the “North” covers respondents from Scotland, the North/North West, Yorkshire and
Humberside and Northern Ireland. The “Midlands” encompasses respondents from the East
Midlands, East Anglia, the West Midlands and Wales. The “South” includes respondents from the
South East, Greater London and the South West.
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Unfortunately, given that the number of members using Modern Apprenticeships was quite
low, small sample sizes do not always support detailed analysis and the drawing of
meaningful conclusions from variations in the data according to organisational size, industrial
sector or geographical location. However, where important differences between the answers
of IoD members in general and the answers of IoD members from a particular category of
firm size, economic sector or geographical location do occur, these are highlighted.
1.3 Executive summary
Members’ use of Modern Apprenticeships as a form of training
Only a small minority of IoD members participating in the survey, 13% (66), used MAs to
train some of their employees. 86% (428) did not currently use MAs. Larger firms, those
from the manufacturing sector and those involved in construction, mining and transport were
most likely to use MAs. MA use was also most commonly reported by those respondents
based in the North of the country.
Modern Apprenticeship participation by programme: Foundation
and Advanced
More than a third (36% (24)) of those directors using MAs were not certain what level of MA
their apprentices were engaged on. Among the remainder, 35% (23) were able to state that
they used both FMAs and AMAs, whilst 21% (14) used FMAs only and 8% (5) just trained
apprentices using AMA frameworks.
Modern Apprenticeship participation by framework
Respondents used a considerable range of MA programmes to train their employees.
Engineering Manufacturing (42% (28)), Business Administration (32% (21)) and Customer
Service (20% (13)) were the three most popular frameworks.
Number of Modern
organisations
Apprentices
employed
by
members’
Those IoD members surveyed who used MAs employed between them a total of 731
Modern Apprentices, including 167 apprentices on FMA frameworks and 193 apprentices on
AMA frameworks. The mean number of MAs employed was 11.66, although most
organisations using MAs as a form of training tended each to employ a relatively small
number of apprentices. Indeed, over two-thirds (68% (45)) of participating respondents had
between one and five Modern Apprentices in their employ.
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Members’ reasons for using Modern Apprenticeships
Directors participating in our survey were motivated to use MAs as a method of training for a
diverse range of reasons. The most common stimulus for the use of MAs was the desire to
solve skill shortages. This was true both of organisations using FMAs (35% (13)) and those
using AMAs (31% (9)). Wanting to upgrade the skills of the existing workforce was also a
common spur, with 18% (7) of organisations using FMAs and 15% (4) of organisations using
AMAs citing this as a factor.
Modern Apprenticeship recruitment
Directors using MAs did so both as a means of recruiting and training new personnel and as a
way of training existing staff, although AMAs were considerably more likely to be advertised
internally (27% (8)) than were FMAs (9% 3)).
Members employed apprentices of varying ages. The majority of FMA recruits were aged 16
or 17 years old, whilst apprentices on AMAs had a higher average age and were more likely
to be aged over 18 (37% compared to 14% of Foundation Modern Apprentices). Indeed, at
least 16% (5) of respondents using AMAs typically recruited apprentices aged 21 or over.
When recruiting Modern Apprentices, directors stipulated a wide range of entry
requirements, but were overall more likely to require formal qualifications than to rely on
other selection techniques.
Off-the-job training
The vast majority of those respondents to our own survey who used Modern
Apprenticeships to train some of their employees incorporated periods of off-the-job training
into the apprenticeship programme. 88% (33) of IoD members using FMAs confirmed that
their apprentices spent time training off-the-job, as did over nine in ten (91% (26)) of those
respondents using AMAs. It is interesting to note that this result comes in spite of there
currently being no statutory requirement for off-the-job training within FMAs. Modern
Apprentices employed by IoD members were most commonly provided with their off-thejob training via regular day or block release at an external training provider.
Duration of Modern Apprenticeships
Directors reported that their Modern Apprentices typically took between two and four years
to complete their MA framework, with the average duration being approximately two and
three-quarter years. Slightly surprisingly, AMAs did not appear to take significantly longer to
complete than FMAs.
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Supporting Modern Apprenticeship training
Respondents revealed that Modern Apprentices employed by their organisations enjoyed
the benefits of a strong network of support. 87% (58) stated that every apprentice in their
employ was supervised by a more experienced member of staff. Three-quarters (76% (50))
revealed that each Modern Apprentice was assigned a mentor whilst over a quarter (28%
(19)) reported the existence of a dedicated training department. A significant proportion of
respondents also revealed that apprentices were supported by external bodies and
individuals such as training advisors, training companies and college lecturers.
Assessing Modern Apprenticeships: completion rates, skill
formation and business benefits
Compared to the national picture, completion rates in members’ MA programmes were very
high: respondents put the average completion rate at over 87% in both FMAs and AMAs.
Perhaps as a corollary, respondents to the survey also enthused about MAs’ efficacy in
equipping employees with the skills needed to do their jobs. 90% (33) of those using FMAs
and 89% (25) of those using AMAs felt that the programme furnished employees with the
requisite skills. Approximately three-quarters (74% of directors using FMAs, 76% of
members using AMAs) considered that participation in MAs had resulted in significant
business benefits.
Non-participation in Modern Apprenticeships
86% (428) of the directors participating in the survey stated that their organisations did not
use MAs. Most prominent among the reasons given for non-participation were that the
organisation preferred to recruit ready qualified staff (29% (122)), that the organisation’s
training needs were met in a different way (19% (79)) and that the respondent’s business or
service was not covered by an MA framework (14% (59)).
31% (134) of directors perceived particular barriers to recruiting Modern Apprentices. Of
these, 19% (25) highlighted difficulties in finding school leavers with the basic skills, with
15% (20) concerned about cost.
When those members not participating in the programme were prompted to suggest changes
to MAs that could persuade their organisation to take part, a perceived lack of relevance
emerged as a key problem. Indeed, 18% (77) of those directors not using MAs responded
that there was no need to make alterations to the programme; it was simply not applicable to
their business. 9% (39) felt that greater financial assistance was required and 7% (32) needed
more information.
Weaknesses in Modern Apprenticeship provision
The MA system is blighted by some key weaknesses. Firstly, the Adult Learning
Inspectorate (ALI) has described 58% of work-based training providers as inadequate, with
9
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the result that too many young people are simply not receiving the quality of vocational
training they deserve. Secondly, achievement rates within MAs are unacceptably low: only a
quarter (24%) of Modern Apprentices completes all the requirements of their framework.
Thirdly, the MA is hampered by a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach that fails to provide adequate
flexibility. The delivery of one of the MA’s central components, key skills, is a particular
cause for concern. Fourthly, in contrast to the traditional pattern of apprenticeship
recruitment, MAs are supply, rather than demand, driven. Finally, the evidence suggests
that MAs are not currently fulfilling their potential to act as a true vocational pathway: rates
of progression from FMAs to AMAs, and from AMAs to higher education, are disappointing.
Suggested reforms to Modern Apprenticeship
The IoD supports the MA and is keen for it to succeed. However, there are key weaknesses
in the programme that need addressing and a number of specific measures that the
Government can take to enhance its relevance to employers, improve completion rates, raise
the quality of training provision, better reflect demand and more firmly establish its place in
a vocational pathway. In particular, the Government should drop its 2004 participation
target; this only serves to aggravate the supply-led orientation of the MA. To stiffen
demand, Technical Certificates should be incorporated into all FMA frameworks and a
minimum entry requirement of GCSEs at A* to C in English and mathematics introduced
for both FMA and AMA programmes. The latter stipulation would allow for the removal of
key skills qualifications in communication and application of number as mandatory elements
of all frameworks, a move that should facilitate the more speedy completion of
apprenticeships or the study of additional technical qualifications. To tackle the
unsatisfactory performance of many training providers, the LSC should cease to fund
providers who fail to improve following a critical inspection report. It should also offer
greater support to those employers, whether individually or collectively, who choose to
undertake to provide apprenticeship training entirely themselves. Finally, in order to
enhance the flexibility of the MA and its relevance to employers, the LSC should permit the
inclusion of other industry standard qualifications as alternatives to the NVQ.
10
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2 Apprenticeship in Britain and the
development of the Modern
Apprenticeship
2.1 Apprenticeship: an historical overview
Britain has a long tradition of apprenticeship, a tradition, indeed, stretching back to the
6
guilds of the Middle Ages. Moreover, though the custom cannot be deemed as
‘apprenticeship’, sending a child away to live with a host family, with free service offered in
return for board and instruction, was a common practice among great English families from
7
the medieval period onwards. In due course, this system evolved and permeated lower
reaches of society, with children received into houses to be trained in professions, trades and
8
crafts. By the Tudor period, although limited to relatively small numbers of children,
apprenticeship was generally accepted as a means of technical training in a wide range of
occupations, although it “was roundly condemned by foreign visitors, who saw it as firm
9
proof of English hard-heartedness towards their offspring”.
The basic conditions of apprenticeship were laid down in the Elizabethan Statute of
Artificers in 1563, supplanting guild control with a centrally devised, national system of
10
training. Among its stipulations were that masters were to have no more than three
apprentices each and that a seven-year term was required before the exercise of a craft or
11
trade. The apprentice effectively became a member of the master’s household and lived
12
with them as part of the family, offering service whilst receiving instruction. This was not
always a voluntary arrangement. The children of paupers or vagrants, even those from
6
The rich history of apprenticeship in this country is punctuated with familiar names. Popularly, one of
the best known apprentices is perhaps Richard [Dick] Whittington, who served an apprenticeship as a
mercer in London in the late fourteenth century and who rose to prominence to become successively
councilman, alderman, sheriff and lord mayor, a capacity in which he served four times between 1397
and 1420 (www.museum-london.org.uk and www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0852173.html).
Apprentices could also be notorious: Jonathan Wild and Dick Turpin were both formerly apprentices
and two-fifths of those hanged at Tyburn in the eighteenth century had served an apprenticeship (J.
Lane, Apprenticeship in England, 1600-1914 (UCL Press, 1996), p. 243).
7
J. Lane, Apprenticeship in England, 1600-1914, p. 9.
8
Ibid, p. 9.
9
Ibid, p. 9.
10
Ibid, pp. 2-3. In practice, though, the Act was administered almost entirely by local guilds (p. 3).
11
Ibid, p. 3.
12
Ibid, pp. 2-3.
11
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13
families “overburdened” with offspring, could be bound as apprentices by local justices.
Moreover, anybody under 21 years old who refused to be an apprentice could be detained at
Her Majesty’s pleasure until such a time that the individual concerned reconsidered their
opposition.14
The apprenticeship system expanded in the seventeenth century and by the eighteenth was
“common in all but the highest social levels”15, remaining, prior to the introduction of
universal education, a principal route for advancement. Its development was accompanied
by the intermittent enactment of legislation correcting and controlling aspects of
apprenticeship, including a spurt of statutes in the period 1747-68 and again in the final two
decades of the eighteenth century. By this time, the guilds’ ability effectively to inspect and
marshal apprentices’ conditions had waned, prompting attempts both to protect apprentices
16
from ill treatment and also to control their growing propensity to abscond. Nor did the State
merely seek to shape apprentices’ working conditions, duties and environment; it also
addressed, and curtailed, their leisure activities: apprentices were prohibited from hunting in
1692 and forbidden from playing various games of hazard, particularly in public houses, from
1757.17 It has even been argued that, prior to the establishment of state education,
apprenticeship was much more concerned with the social control of youth than any
18
economic considerations.
The comprehensive Health and Morals of Apprentices Act of June 1802, which regulated
children’s conditions in mills and factories, and the final repeal of the 1563 Statute in 1814,
19
illustrate the degeneration in apprenticeship’s reputation. Indeed, concerns were not just
held about the conditions of factory children and the use of apprenticeship by Poor Law
officials as a device with which to reduce the poor rate (by indenturing pauper children
13
Ibid, p. 3.
Ibid, p. 3. In addition to requiring young boys and girls to become apprentices, the Act also made
provision for the compulsion of others to receive them. Thus, those “Householders with a minimum
of half a ploughland in tillage were obliged to take in apprentices aged between 10 and 18 until at
least 21 or 24” (Lane, p. 3).
15
Ibid, p. 9.
16
Ibid, pp. 4-5. The Seven Years War, for example, tempted many apprentices to run away and enlist,
and the scale of the problem is revealed by an Act of Parliament of 1766 which stipulated that the
duration of an apprentice’s absence should be added to the period of his apprenticeship (Lane, op.
cit., p. 5).
17
Ibid, pp. 4-5. Apprentices were, however, offered protection from summary dismissal for
misconduct. Lane cites the numerous legal cases demonstrating that offences such as deliberate
absence, theft or occasional drunkenness, though punishable by magistrates, were not necessarily
grounds enough for masters to dismiss their apprentices (p. 3).
18
K.D.M. Snell, ‘The apprenticeship system in British history: the fragmentation of a cultural
institution’ (History of Education, 25, 1996, pp. 303-322), cited in A. Fuller & L. Unwin,
‘Reconceptualising Apprenticeship: exploring the relationship between work and learning’ (Journal of
Vocational Education and Training, Vol. 50, No. 2, 1998), pp. 153-154.
19
J. Lane, Apprenticeship in England, 1600-1914, pp. 5-6. In addition to addressing the physical
conditions in which apprentices worked, the June 1802 Act specified a 12-hour working day, the
abolition of night work and instituted a requirement that factory apprentices be taught reading,
writing and arithmetic. Indeed, this was “a more comprehensive curriculum than that taught in many
charity schools” (Lane, p. 6). After 1814, practising a skill though unapprenticed was no longer illegal
(Lane, p. 247).
14
12
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20
beyond the parish), but also about the morals and sexual exploitation of young apprentices.
Apprenticeship’s status had been transformed. From a Tudor system of “boarding out plus
technical training”21 for an exclusive minority, an increasing number of children became
indentured in factories and sweated occupations, “called apprentices although all the
22
established criteria were distorted”. Nevertheless, for elite careers such as the professions,
and in occupations in which practical skills were paramount, apprenticeship remained both
respected and effective, and a key source of formal vocational training in nineteenth century
23
industrialised nations. By the late nineteenth century, apprenticeship had spread from the
artisinal trades such as building and printing to encompass the newer metalworking
industries of engineering and shipbuilding and, at the end of the century, to plumbing and
24
electrical work.
These developments were, however, contemporaneous with mounting disquiet about
Britain’s deficiencies in vocational and technical education. These concerns spawned a
series of investigative commissions and reports, whose exhortations to “to create, renew,
reform and expand run like a thread through the past 130 years of English (and British)
25
history”. A common, though arguably misplaced, anxiety of the late nineteenth and early
twentieth century was focused on the ‘decline of apprenticeship’, which heightened the calls
26
for more technical instruction. In fact, though the spread of machine tools inevitably
impacted upon craft training generally, apprenticeship remained a principal and valued
means of training in industries such as engineering and shipbuilding, and proved obdurately
27
durable in England generally until after the Second World War.
Both World Wars exerted short-term pressures on the apprenticeship system, which also
came under strain during the intervening years when apprentice numbers appear to have
20
Ibid, pp. 1, 9, & 40-42. Lane relates harrowing evidence of the almost “matter of course” abuse of
female apprentices revealed in official reports (p. 41). There is also evidence, though scarcer, of the
abuse of male apprentices (p. 42). Adolescent sexuality, and the attractions of prostitution, were also
significant problems for officials. Though apprentices were not permitted to fornicate, either inside
marriage or without, brothels catering for London apprentices in the eighteenth century were “part of
the city scene” (p. 194). Nor was this limited to the capital. “In 1756 a Coventry magistrate
condemned the 14- and 15-year olds who had been taken into the fields by a “dirty, disordered
strumpet””, the magistrate being particularly incensed by the frequency of its occurrence on Sundays,
thereby keeping apprentices away from church (p. 194).
21
Ibid, p. 4.
22
Ibid, p. 243.
23
J. Lane, Apprenticeship in England, 1600-1914, p. 247, and A. Wolf, Does Education Matter? Myths about
Education and Economic Growth (London: Penguin, 2002), p. 58.
24
H. Gospel, Whatever happened to apprenticeship training? A British, American, Australian comparison
(Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics and Political Science, Discussion
Paper No. 190, March 1994), p. 5.
25
A. Wolf, Does Education Matter? Myths about Education and Economic Growth, p. 63. On p. 65, Wolf
provides an astonishing list of the major Government reports relating to vocational and technical
education. Depressingly, in spite of all this energy, “nothing very much really happened” (p. 64). See
also M. Sanderson, Education and economic decline in Britain, 1870 to the 1990s (Cambridge University
Press, 1999), p. 14.
26
M. Sanderson, Education and economic decline in Britain, 1870 to the 1990s, p. 17 & pp. 32-33. In an
observation with an interesting later parallel, the author notes, “As apprenticeship was ceasing to give
an all-round training so there was more need for formal technical education to replace what was
diminishingly provided on the job” (p. 17).
27
Ibid, p. 33 & p. 84.
13
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28
fluctuated considerably. Nevertheless, apprenticeship training maintained its pre-eminence
as the main formal method of skill formation for manual workers in the twenty years
29
following the second conflict. Not directly affected by the 1944 Education Act, apprentice
numbers increased in the late 1940s and 1950s in line with the boom in manufacturing
30
31
industry at a time when further education was also undergoing considerable growth.
Despite this, up to the early 1960s, the quality of skilled labour provided by apprenticeship
32
was variable and the institution itself was coming in for sharp criticism by the mid- to late
1950s for being a “medieval survivor inappropriate to the systematic teaching of skills in
33
modern technologies”. Detractors favoured its wholesale replacement with full-time
training in technical colleges, envious and covetous glances having been stolen, not for the
34
first or final time, at the German Berufsfachschulen and the French Centres d’apprentisage.
The proportion of male school leavers aged 15-17 entering apprenticeships reached
approximately 35% by the mid-1960s compared to an estimated 20% in the pre-war period.35
The proportion of 15 year old boys leaving school and entering apprenticeships still stood at
just below a third in 1974.36 Despite having undergone no major reform, modernisation or
expansion, apprenticeships had remained important for much of the twentieth century,
though continued to differ from European models in both the limited extent of Government
involvement and their lack of compulsory examinations at the conclusion of the
37
apprenticeship term. Nevertheless, the mid-1960s represent the high water mark for
apprenticeship in Britain. From the latter years of this decade, the number of apprentices
28
H. Gospel, ‘The decline of apprenticeship training in Britain’ (Industrial Relations Journal, Vol. 26,
No. 1, March 1995). Gospel cautions, though, that statistics prior to the early 1960s are poor.
29
H. Gospel, Whatever happened to apprenticeship training? A British, American, Australian comparison, p. 7.
30
A. Fuller & L. Unwin, ‘Reconceptualising Apprenticeship: exploring the relationship between work
and learning’.
31
Indeed, the number of daytime students in further education tripled between 1946-7 and 1963-4.
See D.H. Aldcroft, Education, Training and Economic Performance 1944 to 1990 (Manchester University
Press, 1992), p. 53. Owen has noted that, after the Second World War, apprenticeship became more
effectively linked to part-time education at school. See G. Owen, From Empire to Europe: The Decline
and Revival of British Industry Since the Second World War (London: HarperCollins, 1999), p. 411.
32
H. Steedman, H. Gospel & P. Ryan, Apprenticeship: A Strategy for Growth (Centre for Economic
Performance, London School of Economics and Political Science, October 1998), p. 20.
33
C. Barnett, The Verdict of Peace – Britain Between her Yesterday and the Future (London: Macmillan,
2001), p. 465.
34
Ibid, p. 465.
35
D.H. Aldcroft, Education, Training and Economic Performance 1944 to 1990, p. 53. The corresponding
proportion of girls entering apprenticeships was approximately 5-6%.
36
A. Wolf, Does Education Matter? Myths about Education and Economic Growth, p. 59.
37
A. Wolf, Does Education Matter? Myths about Education and Economic Growth, pp. 58-59. Owen has
commented that, in 1919, the Engineering Employers’ Federation (EEF) proposed wide-ranging
reform of the industry’s training requirements, including a systematic approach to apprentices’
training and a national scheme for supplementing on-the-job learning with part-time attendance at
school. However, the ending of the post-war boom sapped the enthusiasm for collective training
reform as the emphasis shifted towards cost cutting. The prospect of a joint approach with the unions
towards apprenticeship reform faded as a “rash” of disputes emerged about wages, manning levels
and working hours. It was killed stone dead by the union’s defeat in the national lock-out of 1922. See
G. Owen, From Empire to Europe: The Decline and Revival of British Industry Since the Second World War,
p. 409.
14
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38
fell precipitously: from 243,700 in 1966 to just 53,000 by 1990. The system drew criticism
from employers for its exclusivity, being restricted to young men in particular trades; its
focus on time-serving rather than on the attainment of standards; its inability, due to its
rigidity and narrowness, to respond to the needs of industry; and its perpetuation of trade
39
demarcations and craft restrictions. Unquestionably, as a method of instruction, it had basic
faults; indeed, “More often than not apprenticeship was seen as a condition of employment
40
rather than a system of effective training in skills”.
The decline of apprenticeship, though, is not simply attributable to the diminishing
commitment, and increasing antipathy, of business or policy makers towards an institution
that had always been inflexible, limited in choice and offered few opportunities for
41
innovation. Other factors were at work, including rising post-16 participation in full-time
education which, alongside the expansion of higher education, diverted potential recruits
42
away from apprenticeship. Additionally, “technical change…eradicated many of the trade
43
jobs to which apprenticeship led”, especially in printing and in engineering. Also acting
against apprenticeship was the rising cost, and thereby reduced attractiveness, of
44
apprenticeship places to employers from the late 1960s. Apprentice wages in relation to
adult earnings were much higher in Britain than elsewhere, with the result that training costs
45
were correspondingly greater. One also has to consider, following the record of the Youth
38
H. Gospel, ‘The decline of apprenticeship training in Britain’. This data is drawn from statistics
collected by the former Department for Employment. Gospel notes that these statistics were based
on employer reporting and probably tended to underestimate the numbers of apprentices due to the
failure of smaller employers to report enrolments. Apprenticeship’s sharpest falls occurred in the late
1960s and early 1970s, in the early and mid-1980s and again in the early and mid-1990s (H. Steedman,
H. Gospel & P. Ryan, Apprenticeship: A Strategy for Growth, p. 21.
39
H. Gospel, ‘Whatever Happened to Apprenticeship Training in Britain?’ (Studies in Economics, no.
93/14, University of Kent, September 1993).
40
D.H. Aldcroft, Education, Training and Economic Performance 1944 to 1990, p. 55. Aldcroft notes,
“There was no obligation on the part of employers to provide formal training or release facilities for
purposes of external instruction; nor was there any proper supervision of training under
apprenticeship by any recognised outside authority” (p. 55). He also remarks that it is unsurprising
that the Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers’ Associations, reporting in 1968, was
highly critical of the restrictive and inflexible nature of the traditional craft apprenticeship system. It
concluded that, in some cases, “apprenticeship is a farce and provides less training than a properly
constituted course lasting only a few months…The fact that a man has completed an apprenticeship
does not therefore of itself guarantee that he has acquired any particular level of skills, or that he has
passed any form of test of ability” (pp. 56-57).
41
J. Lane, Apprenticeship in England, 1600-1914, p. 9.
42
Sanderson notes that whilst the proportion of the youth cohort in apprenticeship fell from 13% to
9% between 1989 and 1992, those in full-time education doubled from 15% to 30% between 1984 and
1993. See M. Sanderson, Education and economic decline in Britain, 1870 to the 1990s, p. 86. It should be
noted, though, that the decline in apprentice numbers predates this trend of increasing participation
in post-compulsory education.
43
M. Sanderson, Education and economic decline in Britain, 1870 to the 1990s, p. 84.
44
H. Gospel, ‘The Revival of Apprenticeship Training in Britain?’ (Centre for Economic
Performance, London School of Economics and Political Science, Discussion Paper No. 372, October
1997), p. 8.
45
In 1978, apprenticeship wages were 60% of adult earnings in Britain, compared to 17-25% in
Switzerland and Germany. See D.H. Aldcroft, Education, Training and Economic Performance 1944 to
1990, p. 58.
15
______________________________________________________________________________________
Training Scheme (YTS) and Youth Training (YT) (see below), the impact of the poor image
46
of youth training programmes in the eyes of the public.
Finally, Government policies themselves also failed to address, or even abetted,
apprenticeship’s slide. Far from offering succour to the apprenticeship system, the Industrial
Training Boards (ITBs), the progeny of the 1964 Industrial Training Act, failed miserably to
47
revive it. Although measures to improve apprenticeships were implemented through the
48
49
1970s and 1980s , apprenticeship as an institution was not fundamentally reformed.
Government mistrust of apprenticeship training as an instrument of trade union influence in
50
the workplace , evident from the early 1980s and fuelled by negative reports published by
the Central Policy Review Staff and the Manpower Services Commission51, did nothing to
52
arrest the falling number of apprentices. Moreover, when concerns resurfaced in the late
1970s and early 1980s about the long-standing deficiencies in the country’s vocational and
53
technical provision vis-à-vis her international competitors , the schemes that the
Government initiated in response were arguably detrimental to apprenticeship. It is
Gospel’s judgement that, taken cumulatively, interventions such as the introduction of the
TECs and the rationalisation of vocational qualifications under the National Council for
Vocational Qualifications (NCVQ), served to undermine the traditional apprenticeship
46
A. Fuller & L. Unwin, ‘Does Apprenticeship Still Have Meaning in the UK?’ (forthcoming, 2003).
The ITBs were empowered to impose a levy on employers, reimbursable if the employers’ training
programmes met approved standards. Ultimately, though, the “levy-grant system turned out to be
over-bureaucratic and was greatly resented by small firms”. They were subsequently replaced by the
Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs), which themselves gave way to Learning and Skills
Councils from 2001. See G. Owen, From Empire to Europe: The Decline and Revival of British Industry
Since the Second World War, p. 411. See also D.H. Aldcroft, Education, Training and Economic
Performance 1944 to 1990, p. 59.
48
Gospel highlights the development of modular training; increased volumes of off-the-job training;
and the introduction of new standards to replace time-serving. See H. Gospel, ‘The Revival of
Apprenticeship Training in Britain?’, p. 5.
49
Importantly, though, Owen argues that even had apprenticeship been thoroughly reformed, it
would not necessarily have aided the performance of British industry in the post-war period. He
concludes, “deficiencies in the training system do not appear to have been a major cause of the
productivity lag behind Germany and France in the first thirty years after the Second World War”. G.
Owen, From Empire to Europe: The Decline and Revival of British Industry Since the Second World War, pp.
414 & 415.
50
G. Owen, From Empire to Europe: The Decline and Revival of British Industry Since the Second World
War, p. 411.
51
See Education, Training, and Industrial Performance (Central Policy Review Staff, London: HMSO,
1980) and A New Training Initiative (Manpower Services Commission, London: HMSO, 1981), both
cited in H. Gospel, The Revival of Apprenticeship Training in Britain?, p. 9.
52
H. Gospel, Whatever happened to apprenticeship training? A British, American, Australian comparison, p.
10.
53
By 1988, only 26% of the British workforce possessed intermediate vocational qualifications,
compared with 40% in France and 64% in Germany (D.H. Aldcroft, Education, Training and Economic
Performance 1944 to 1990, p. 67. Other concerns included: the high rate of early drop-out from school;
the large number of young people not only without formal qualifications but also deficient in basic
literacy and numeracy; the low incidence of formal training for young entrants to the work-force who
did not embark upon apprenticeships; and the virtual absence of adult training. See E. Keep & K.
Mayhew, ‘The assessment: knowledge, skills and competitiveness’ (Oxford Review of Economic Policy,
Vol. 15, No. 1, 1999).
47
16
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54
55
system. The YTS , introduced in 1983 and replaced by YT in 1990, was characterised by
low quality training and consequently failed to win a good reputation among either young
56
people or their employers. Indeed, Aldcroft has commented, “From the point of view of
raising the standard of training and improving the total stock of key skills in the labour force,
57
the YTS was little short of a disaster”. Damagingly, although some employers upgraded YT
trainees to full apprenticeships, “others replaced their apprenticeship programmes with
58
YT”.
The new training schemes themselves came under pressure from the late 1980s. Economic
recession had caused the employment opportunities for young people to wither,
participation in full-time education continued to burgeon and, by 1993, the number of those
59
enrolling on YT had fallen to approximately half the level of the mid-1980s. Moreover,
whilst post-compulsory participation had indeed increased dramatically, from just over half
of 16 year olds in 1988 to 70% in 1993, it then reached a plateau from which it failed
60
subsequently to ascend. Not only did the rate of post-16 participation level out, many of
61
the young people who stayed in education at 16 only did so for a year. In the meantime, the
concerns about the country’s performance in developing intermediate level skills rumbled
62
on. “If the full-time education route was not going to produce enough people with level 3
54
H. Gospel, Whatever happened to apprenticeship training? A British, American, Australian comparison, p.
10.
55
When launching YTS, the then Employment Secretary, Norman Tebbitt, called it the “most far
reaching and ambitious proposal ever put before Parliament” (A. Wolf, Does Education Matter? Myths
about Education and Economic Growth, p. 68). Similarly, and only slightly less effusively, the then
Secretary of State for Education and Employment, David Blunkett, described the new Learning and
Skills Council as, “undoubtedly the most significant and far reaching reform ever enacted to post-16
learning in this country” (D. Blunkett, Education into Employability: The role of the DfEE in the Economy
(Department for Education and Employment, January 2001), paragraph 31).
56
H. Steedman, H. Gospel & P. Ryan, Apprenticeship: A Strategy for Growth, p. 21. As Keep and
Mayhew have concluded, YTS and YT, “became recognized largely as schemes to get the
unemployed back into work than substantive devices for improving skills” (E. Keep & K. Mayhew,
‘The assessment: knowledge, skills and competitiveness’).
57
D.H. Aldcroft, Education, Training and Economic Performance 1944 to 1990, p. 66.
58
M. Sanderson, Education and economic decline in Britain, 1870 to the 1990s, p. 85.
59
L. Unwin & J. Wellington, Young People’s Perspectives on Education, Training and Employment:
Realizing their Potential (London: Kogan Page, 2001), p. 10. The authors note that, by 1993, “the
numbers entering Youth Training had dropped to under 300,000 from a peak of 600,000 in the mid
1980s”.
60
Ibid, p. 10 & p. 11. Participation in full-time education at age 16 was still 70% at the end of 1999 (D.
Blunkett, Education into Employability: The role of the DfEE in the Economy, paragraph 23).
61
L. Unwin & J. Wellington, Young People’s Perspectives on Education, Training and Employment:
Realizing their Potential, p. 11.
62
The remedying of intermediate skill deficiencies remains a principal focus of education policy, the
National Skills Task Force having found the formation of intermediate skills within the economy to
be a particular weakness. According to its 1999 report, the proportion of the UK workforce qualified to
NVQ Level 2 stood at 55%, compared to 73% in France and 83% in Germany. 37% of the UK
workforce were qualified to NVQ Level 3, as opposed to 74% of the German workforce (UK and
France data is for 1998 whilst data for Germany is for 1997). The Task Force concluded: “It is clear
that the main reasons for this deficit, at least when compared to Germany, is the lower proportion of
the UK workforce with intermediate level vocational qualifications – the UK compares favourably on
the proportions with general education qualifications”. See Skills for all: Research Report from the
National Skills Task Force (Department for Education and Employment, 2000), pp. 62-63. However, a
17
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63
qualifications, then the work-based route would have to play its part”. Thus, the
Conservative Government, in a move that ran counter to its previous attitude towards
apprenticeship, set the stage for its reinvention and reinvigoration.
2.2 The development of Modern Apprenticeships
The creation of the new apprenticeship scheme was announced by the then Chancellor of
the Exchequer, Kenneth Clarke, in his (first) Budget statement of 30 November 1993. It
would, he said, “provide a major boost to work-based training and increase substantially the
number of young people obtaining the technical and craft skills which not only employers
64
but trade unions agree the country has been lacking”. The necessity of boosting the
achievement of young people “to beat our competitors and stay ahead”, was further
emphasised in an accompanying statement released by David Hunt, the then Secretary of
65
State for Employment. To address skill deficiencies at intermediate level, the programme
aimed both to expand and update existing apprenticeship schemes whilst also promoting
structured training in those occupations, industries and sectors with no tradition of offering
66
apprenticeships. The new scheme was to be called Modern Apprenticeship, a name
deliberately chosen not simply to distinguish the programme from its predecessors, but also
because ‘apprenticeship’ was considered to retain positive associations of good quality
67
training in the public perception.
Modern Apprenticeships (MAs)68 attempted to combine the traditional strengths of
69
apprenticeship with innovations designed to address its weaknesses. Like their
recent research report for the DfES suggested that deficiencies in the use of intermediate level
qualifications in Britain might be due to deficiencies of demand as well as of supply. The report
found, “…there are 6.4 million people qualified to the equivalent of NVQ level 3 in the workforce,
but only 4 million jobs that demand this level of highest qualification. There are a further 5.3 million
people qualified at level 2, but only 3.9 million jobs that require a highest qualification at this lower
level. The other side of this same coin is that, whereas there are now only 2.9 million economically
active people aged 20-60 who possess no qualifications, there remain 6.5 million jobs for which no
qualification would be required to obtain them”. See A. Felstead, D. Gallie & F. Green, Work Skills in
Britain 1986-2001 (Department for Education and Skills, January 2002), p. 11. See also p. 104 & p.
118.
63
L. Unwin & J. Wellington, Young People’s Perspectives on Education, Training and Employment:
Realizing their Potential, p. 11.
64
See House of Commons Hansard Debates for 30 November 1993, available online at
http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm199394/cmhansrd/1993-11-30/Debate-1.html.
65
‘David Hunt announces new modern apprenticeship scheme to boost Britain’s skills’ (Department
of Employment Press Release, 30 November 1993), cited in T. Jarvis, Employment and Training
Programmes for the Unemployed (House of Commons Library Research Paper 98/111, 7 December
1998), p. 14.
66
T. Anderson & H. Metcalf, Modern Apprenticeship Employers: Evaluation Study (Department for
Education and Skills Research Report 417, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, April
2003), p. 1.
67
L. Unwin & J. Wellington, Young People’s Perspectives on Education, Training and Employment:
Realizing their Potential, p. 11.
68
The original structure of National Traineeships and Modern Apprenticeships was replaced by
Foundation Modern Apprenticeships (FMAs) and Advanced Modern Apprenticeships (AMAs)
following a Government consultation exercise in the summer of 2000. Where the term ‘Modern
18
______________________________________________________________________________________
antecedents, MAs incorporated a written agreement between employer and apprentice,
specifying the training and qualifications to be undertaken and which was underwritten by
the local Training and Enterprise Council (TEC). The Modern Apprentice was also to have
70
71
employed status and be paid a wage. Gone, however, was the emphasis on time serving ,
replaced by the competence-based NVQ within training frameworks developed by the
National Training Organisations (NTOs). Furthermore, the required NVQ was to be at
Level 3, thereby distinguishing MAs from previous publicly funded youth training
72
programmes, such as YT, which had led to a Level 2 NVQ.
MA prototypes started running from September 199473 and the programme became fully
operational from September 1995. By June 1996, a Government White Paper was reporting
that the response from employers and young people had been “encouraging”: MA
frameworks covered 54 sectors and there were in excess of 20,000 Modern Apprentices in
training.74 The expansion continued apace, unaffected by the change of Government in May
75
1997, and MA frameworks had been approved in 75 sectors by January 1998. In December
of that year, the new Secretary of State for Education and Employment enthusiastically
proclaimed that, “The idea of revitalising the oldest tradition in training” had “caught the
76
public imagination”.
A further stage in the evolution of previous labour market programmes had been announced
on 27 March 1996 by the then Secretary of State for Education and Employment, Gillian
77
Shepherd, in her response to the Dearing Review of Qualifications for 16-19 Year Olds.
National Traineeships, introduced nationally from September 1997, “were launched in an
attempt to improve the status of YT and to act as a progression route into apprenticeship for
Apprenticeships’ (MAs) is used in this paper, it refers to the new system of FMAs and AMAs in the
collective, and not to the pre-existing structure.
69
G. Owen, ‘Industry’, in A. Seldon (ed.), The Blair Effect: The Blair Government 1997-2001 (London:
Little, Brown and Company, 2001), p. 219. Owen includes among apprenticeship’s strengths its
training in broad, transferable skills, with the lack of externally monitored standards of competence a
prominent weakness. Lane observed that some of the aims and features of the MA, such as
customised training and signing a pledge, would have been both “acknowledged and valued” in the
eighteenth century (J. Lane, Apprenticeship in England, 1600-1914, p. 247).
70
These provisions contrast with the arrangements for YTS/YT trainees, who were on placement from
training providers rather than employment, and paid a Government training allowance rather than a
wage. L. Unwin & J. Wellington, Young People’s Perspectives on Education, Training and Employment:
Realizing their Potential, p. 12.
71
As Steedman has noted though, whilst the employer’s discretion to determine the length of training
was a novel feature of the MA compared to the traditional apprenticeship, this was simply continuing
the trend established by YT. Part of the change from YTS to YT had been that a fixed training
duration ceased to be a condition of the public funding of youth training. See H. Steedman,
Benchmarking Apprenticeship: UK and Continental Europe Compared (Centre for Economic Performance,
London School of Economics and Political Science, September 2001), p. 5.
72
A. Fuller & L. Unwin, ‘Does Apprenticeship Still Have Meaning in the UK?’
73
T. Jarvis, Employment and Training Programmes for the Unemployed, p. 14.
74
Competitiveness – Creating the enterprise centre of Europe (Cm 3300, June 1996), available online at
www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/caboff/compet96/compet96.htm.
75
T. Jarvis, Employment and Training Programmes for the Unemployed, p. 14.
76
‘Modern Apprenticeships – the popular choice for school leavers – Blunkett’ (Department for
Education and Employment Press Notice 1998/0574, 11 December 1998).
77
T. Jarvis, Employment and Training Programmes for the Unemployed, p. 19. The incoming Labour
Government confirmed its support for National Traineeships in July 1997.
19
______________________________________________________________________________________
78
those young people who were not ready to enter a level 3 programme”. However, despite
the innovations and changes in nomenclature, concerns were already being raised about the
demand of the new training structure. In 1996, Steedman published a comparison of the
Modern Apprenticeship against other European models. It was unfavourable, judging that
whilst a young person completing an apprenticeship qualification in the German-speaking
79
dual-system could cope with a British NVQ in the same occupation, a young person with a
British apprenticeship would struggle to reach the general educational and technical
80
standards required by the dual-system.
In 1999, in its second report, the National Skills Task Force81 made a number of
recommendations to improve the quality and standing of Modern Apprenticeships, although
it “rejected the idea of trying to create a mass apprenticeship system along German lines”.82
Instead, it proposed a system of improved MAs, more closely linked occupational courses at
Level 3 in further education and a broader range of opportunities at Level 4 through
graduate apprenticeships and linked associate degree courses.83 It suggested that National
Traineeships be recast to create a ‘Foundation Apprenticeship’ route as the first stage before
78
L. Unwin & J. Wellington, Young People’s Perspectives on Education, Training and Employment:
Realizing their Potential, p. 11.
79
German apprentices spend some of their time working under the supervision of older skilled
workers, but are also obliged to continue their general education in publicly funded schools – hence
the description of the system as ‘dual’. “Government spends directly only on the general-education
component of an apprentice’s life. Otherwise the system is genuinely both funded and run at a local
level, by the employers, by companies’ works councils and by the Chambers of Commerce, but not by
public officials” (A. Wolf, Does Education Matter? Myths about Education and Economic Growth, p. 142).
80
See the account of her previous work in H. Steedman, Benchmarking Apprenticeship: UK and
Continental Europe Compared, p. 9.
81
The National Skills Task Force was formed in 1998 in order to assist the Secretary of State for
Education and Employment develop a “National Skills Agenda which will ensure that Britain has the
skills needed to sustain high levels of employment, compete in the global market place and provide
opportunity for all” (Towards a National Skills Agenda: First Report of the National Skills Task Force
(Department for Education and Employment, 1998), Annex A). The Task Force was charged with
providing specific advice on: the nature and extent of skills needs; practical measures to ease skills
and recruitment difficulties; the likely changes in the longer term skill needs of the economy; and
how best to ensure the education and training system responds to identified needs (Source: ibid). The
Secretary of State saw a particular role for the Task Force in helping to achieve his aim of “a working
population whose skill and education levels are the envy of the world” (‘David Blunkett appoints
head of new Skills Task Force’ (DfEE Press Notice 1998/0090, 17 February 1998).
82
Second Report of the National Skills Task Force: Delivering Skills for All (London, Department for
Education and Employment, 1999), p. 16. Although one might comment that a system that aims to
provide apprenticeship training for 28% of the youth cohort could, nevertheless, legitimately be
described as “mass”, it does not approach the situation in Germany where approximately two-thirds of
young people enter an apprenticeship. The Task Force considered it “impractical” to try to create
such a system in this country. One would also have to question whether such a move would in any
case be desirable. German apprentices spend an average of three years with an employer, during
which time they combine training in the workplace with vocational and general education delivered
in public vocational schools. Drop out and examination failure rates are low. However, the system is
not faultless and could not simply be copied and re-introduced here. See A. Wolf, Does Education
Matter? Myths about Education and Economic Growth, pp. 162-167, for an excellent overview of German
apprenticeship training.
83
Second Report of the National Skills Task Force: Delivering Skills for All, p. 16. The Task Force was keen
to develop vocational opportunities in higher education in order “to ensure the completion of an
effective and coherent route through to the highest vocational qualifications” (p. 16).
20
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84
a full Modern Apprenticeship , and that the level of technical knowledge and understanding
required by Foundation and Modern Apprenticeships be enhanced through the inclusion of
85
related vocational qualifications in all frameworks. Given the desirability of offering the
opportunity of further educational progression, the Task Force was also keen that
apprenticeships included units in general mathematics and English at Level 2. In its view,
the key skills in communication and application of number were not, on their own, adequate
86
substitutes for those wishing to progress to higher learning. Finally, it recommended that
all workplace training staff instructing Modern Apprentices be required to hold appropriate
87
qualifications as trainers.
Following the Skills Task Force report, the Secretary of State for Education and
88
Employment announced a series of reforms to “boost” MAs on 16 February 2000. The
proposed changes were put out to public consultation in July 2000, where they duly gained
“widespread support”, and the Government’s formal response was published on 27 March
89
2001. The resulting modifications were designed to raise standards, increase retention and
90
provide more opportunities for progression. The main alterations included :
•
a clearer structure for apprenticeships, including the replacement of National
Traineeships by Foundation Modern Apprenticeships (FMAs) and of Modern
Apprenticeships with Advanced Modern Apprenticeships (AMAs). FMAs are designed
principally for school leavers and other young people aged 16-24 and provide training to
NVQ Level 2. AMAs are intended for those who progress from an FMA and for entrants
with experience or higher qualifications, including existing employees, and prescribe
training to NVQ Level 3. This change was initiated in 2001.
•
the better integration of key skills91 within MAs and the stipulation that Level 2 key
skills in communication and application of number become minimum mandatory
84
Ibid, p. 17 and pp. 37-38.
Ibid, p. 42. In the Task Force’s view, this move would not only ensure the delivery of a more
effective programme, but would also facilitate increased transferability and portability of
qualifications.
86
Ibid, pp. 43-44.
87
Ibid, p. 53.
88
‘Blunkett announces major expansion and reform of vocational learning’ (Department for Education
and Employment Press Notice 2000/0065, 16 February 2000).
89
‘Tessa Blackstone announces extra £180 million for thousands more Modern Apprenticeships’
(Department for Education and Employment Press Notice 2001/0175, 27 March 2001). Aspects of the
Government’s intentions were trailed in the Secretary of State’s speech to the Institute of Economic
Affairs in January 2001 – see ‘Blunkett urges business to back ambitious drive to bring vocational
education into the educational mainstream’ (Department for Education and Employment Press
Notice 2001/0036, 24 January 2001). See also the accompanying pamphlet, D. Blunkett, Education into
Employability: The role of the DfEE in the Economy, paragraphs 47-52.
90
See T. Anderson & H. Metcalf, Modern Apprenticeship Employers: Evaluation Study, pp. 1-2.
91
The key skills are: communication; application of number; information technology; working with
others; improving own learning and performance; and problem solving. “The key skills units (Working
with Others, Problem Solving, Improving Own Learning and Performance) are not externally assessed
and are therefore not regarded as qualifications within the National Qualifications Framework. In this
they differ from the key skills qualifications (Application of Number, Communication and IT). The
wider key skills units, however, can be offered and certificated by key skills awarding bodies” (Key
Skills Policy & Practice: Your Questions Answered (DfES, LSC and QCA, 2002), p. 37).
85
21
______________________________________________________________________________________
requirements in all AMAs. The inclusion of other key skill requirements in MA
92
frameworks remains at the discretion of the relevant Sector Skills Council (SSC). This
change was introduced in September 2001.93 Key skills were to be assessed by timed
testing, as opposed to the portfolio of evidence approach used previously.
•
the introduction of Technical Certificates94, delivered in the main via off-the-job
95
training, designed to assess specific occupational knowledge. This is a significant
development and one welcomed by the IoD as it addressed widespread concerns about
the weak level of knowledge and understanding previously demanded in some MA
96
frameworks. Technical Certificates were introduced in four pathfinder frameworks in
May 2002 and are now available in 97% of all AMAs.97 There is currently no requirement
to have a Technical Certificate within an FMA, although the IoD considers that such a
98
stipulation should exist and be implemented immediately.
92
The SCCs have assumed the responsibility for developing MA frameworks from their predecessor
bodies, the National Training Organisations (NTOs). See section 3.1.
93
It should be noted, though, that although key skills were not mandatory components of MAs prior to
this reform, most frameworks did, in practice, require apprentices to complete certain key skills units.
Furthermore, some frameworks, for example in engineering, had also traditionally required
apprentices to take additional vocational qualifications alongside the NVQ to bolster the theoretical
demand of the programme. See L. Unwin & J. Wellington, Young People’s Perspectives on Education,
Training and Employment: Realizing their Potential, p. 12.
94
The QCA was asked by the then DfEE to develop this range of vocationally related qualifications.
The name Technical Certificate would be regarded as a classification term so that existing vocational
qualifications (e.g. BTEC National) would retain their original name. Where no suitable qualifications
existed, the Sector Skills Councils will work in partnership with awarding bodies to develop new
qualifications. See P. Ryan & L. Unwin, ‘Apprenticeship in the British ‘training market’’ (National
Institute Economic Review No. 178, October 2001) and the QCA website at
www.qca.org.uk/nq/framework/technical_certificates/index.asp.
95
Prior to the introduction of Technical Certificates, the qualifications required by an apprentice did
not necessitate off-the-job training.
96
However, as Alison Fuller and Lorna Unwin have pointed out, the Manpower Services Commission
was stressing the importance of compulsory periods of off-the-job training for YTS trainees as long ago
as 1986. See A. Fuller & L. Unwin, ‘Creating a ‘Modern Apprenticeship’: a critique of the UK’s multisector, social inclusion approach’ (Journal of Education and Work, 16:1, 2003).
97
Percentage coverage data provided by the Learning and Skills Council, 30 June 2003.
98
There is an extraordinary array of Technical Certificates within AMAs. They include certificates,
awards and diplomas issued by: City & Guilds of London Institute (CGLI); Edexcel (BTEC National
Certificates and Diplomas); OCR; the Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT); the London
Chamber of Commerce and Industry Examinations Board (LCCIEB); Pitmans; the Awarding Body
Consortium (ABC); the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB); the National Open College
Network (NOCN); the Council for Awards in Children’s Care and Education (CACHE); the
Worshipful Company of Farriers (WCF); the Wine and Spirit Education Trust (WSET); the British
Institute of Innkeeping Awarding Body (BIIAB); the Royal Institute of Public Health and Hygiene
(RIPHH); the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health (RSPH); the Chartered Insurance Institute
(CII); the Chartered Institute of Bankers (CIB); the Institute of Management (IM); the NCFE; the
st
National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA); 1 4 Sport; the Amateur Swimming Association (ASA);
Central YMCA Qualifications (CYQ); and the Institute of the Motor Industry (IMI). Information
provided by the Learning and Skills Council’s Policy and Development Directorate, 17 April 2003.
22
______________________________________________________________________________________
•
the introduction of an Apprenticeship Diploma to mark apprentices’ completion of the
full MA framework, including the NVQ, Technical Certificate and key skills. This
recommendation has not yet been implemented.
•
the introduction of nationally agreed payments, by sector, for training. Under the
previous system, the TECs had discretion in how MAs were funded, a situation which
resulted not only in wide variability in funding by sector, but also in fluctuations in
99
funding from year to year. The ending of such unpredictability in funding provision,
which impeded business planning and was a source of great uncertainty for employers,
100
was an improvement urged by the IoD.
In April 2001, the LSC took over the funding and delivery of MAs from the Further
Education Funding Council (FEFC) and the TECs, in a move the Government envisaged
would “beef up both the delivery and the promotion” of the qualification “to match world
101
class standards”. To assist this process, the Secretary of State for Education and
Employment established the Modern Apprenticeship Advisory Committee, chaired by Sir
John Cassels, to subject MAs to a major review. Appointed in March 2001, the Committee
was required to advise the Secretary of State and the LSC on a three-year action plan for
102
developing, promoting and delivering the “new generation” of MAs. The Committee
submitted its report, Modern Apprenticeships: The Way to Work (otherwise known as the
‘Cassels Report’), on 28 September 2001, making a large number of recommendations and
103
endorsing some of the reforms previously proposed by the Government and the Skills
104
Task Force. Interestingly, though, its suggestion that a target be set for attracting 35% of
young people into MAs by 2010, with an intermediary target of 28% by 2004, was only
105
partially accepted.
99
In a report on Modern Apprenticeships published in 2000, the Training Standards Council also
commented on the disparity in funding levels provided by different TECs in the same year. The
report noted, “…a training provider with contracts from several different TECs for engineering
modern apprentices is paid £3,390 by one TEC and £10,000 by another for apprentices working
alongside one another, in the same workplace and receiving the same support, off-the-job training and
assessment”. It concluded that the “peculiarities of funding”, alongside the separation of key skills
training, were “incentives towards non-completion”. See Modern Apprenticeships: A Survey Report by the
Training Standards Council (Training Standards Council, 2000), pp. 14 & 16.
100
R. Wilson, Modern Apprenticeships (Institute of Directors Education Comment, August 2000), p. 3.
101
‘Tessa Blackstone announces extra £180 million for thousands more Modern Apprenticeships’
(Department for Education and Employment Press Notice 2001/0175, 27 March 2001).
102
‘Morris, Brown and Hewitt announce new plans for Modern Apprenticeships’ (Department for
Education and Skills Press Notice 2001/0400, 29 November 2001). See also Modern Apprenticeships: The
Way to Work. The Report of the Modern Apprenticeship Advisory Committee (Department for Education and
Skills, September 2001), p. 1.
103
A. Fuller & L. Unwin, ‘Creating a ‘Modern Apprenticeship’: a critique of the UK’s multi-sector,
social inclusion approach’.
104
The Committee’s report is available on the Department for Education and Skills’ website at
www.dfes.gov.uk/ma.consultation/docs/MA_The_Way_to_Work.pdf.
105
The proposed 35% target was not accepted by either the Secretary of State or the LSC. However,
the Government did accept the 28% target and this became a Public Service Agreement. See Modern
Apprenticeships: the Way to Work. The Report of the Modern Apprenticeship Advisory Committee. The LSC
Implementation Plan in respect of Recommendations contained in the Report, p. 6. The IoD does not accept
or support either target.
23
______________________________________________________________________________________
In late November, the then Secretary of State for Education and Skills, Estelle Morris,
together with the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Trade and
Industry, announced plans “to make on-the-job training for young people in England match
106
the best in the world”. Building on the Advisory Committee’s work, the reforms proposed
included confirmation of the development and incorporation of Technical Certificates,
together with the introduction of an overarching Apprenticeship Diploma. Also confirmed
was an entitlement to an apprenticeship place for all 16 and 17 year olds with five or more
GCSEs at grades A* to G from September 2004, which had been a Government manifesto
107
commitment, a Cassels recommendation and previously announced in March 2001. In
addition, the Government announced a drive to encourage greater employer involvement,
108
including a £16 million marketing campaign over three years , and accepted the
recommendation that FMA apprentices achieve, as a minimum, key skills qualifications in
109
communication and application of number at Level 1. The latter, it will be noticed, left the
bar of achievement at a very low level. Finally, the Government approved a national
framework for apprenticeships, to include a minimum permitted duration for both FMA (1
year) and AMA (2 years) programmes.110
The need for action to strengthen MAs was clear, the programme having continued to attract
vociferous disparagement for its lack of rigour. Steedman, for example, concluded in 2001
that, “apprenticeship in Britain, judged as a programme, falls short of that provided
elsewhere in Europe on every important measure of good practice”.111 Ryan and Unwin were
similarly scathing, criticising its limited contribution and the low rates of qualification,
112
completion and employer involvement. They also doubted whether, in actuality,
initiatives such as Technical Certificates and the mandatory inclusion of key skills units
113
would have a significant impact on the educational demand of the MA. Concerns about
quality were further underlined by the Learning and Skills Development Agency (LSDA)
report into standards in work-based learning, published in June 2002, which generated
another Government-endorsed, “robust”, action plan to brace the quality of vocational
provision still further.114
106
‘Morris, Brown and Hewitt announce new plans for Modern Apprenticeships’ (Department for
Education and Skills Press Notice 2001/0400, 29 November 2001).
107
The manifesto commitment to introduce an entitlement to apprenticeship can be found in
Ambitions for Britain: Labour’s Manifesto 2001 (Labour Party, 2001).
108
‘Morris, Brown and Hewitt announce new plans for Modern Apprenticeships’ (Department for
Education and Skills Press Notice 2001/0400, 29 November 2001).
109
Key Skills Policy & Practice: Your Questions Answered, p. 32.
110
See ‘Learning and Skills Council to lead on delivering Modern Apprenticeships’ (Learning and
Skills Council Press Release, 12 June 2002). A network of ‘Apprenticeship Agents’ would help
employers deliver apprenticeships.
111
H. Steedman, Benchmarking Apprenticeship: UK and Continental Europe Compared, p. 37.
112
P. Ryan & L. Unwin, ‘Apprenticeship in the British ‘training market’’, p. 111.
113
Ibid, p. 104. The authors’ analysis demonstrated that the MA fell short of the standard of the
German apprenticeship system in both quantitative and qualitative terms.
114
See ‘Work-based learning for young people must improve’ (Department for Education and Skills
Press Notice 2002/0120, 11 June 2002). The plan: enabled the LSC to re-deploy £25 million to
implement MA reform and improve retention and achievement rates; aimed to improve information
and guidance on MA frameworks and progression routes; established Apprenticeship Agents to assist
employers deliver MA programmes; offered support to training providers to improve whilst
terminating the contracts of those unable to recover; and sought to improve training providers’
24
______________________________________________________________________________________
Clearly, the Government’s commitments to involve 28% of young people enter MAs by 2004
and to entitle all those with five GCSEs at A* to G to an apprenticeship, depend heavily on
115
employers providing sufficient places. In his November 2002 Pre-Budget Report, the
Chancellor announced the creation of a National Modern Apprenticeship Task Force,
chaired by Sir Roy Gardner, “to champion the MA scheme and report on key policy
116
issues”. The Task Force was launched in February 2003, focused, according to the
Secretary of State for Education and Skills, “on selling the clear benefits of Modern
117
Apprenticeships within the employer community”. Not only does the Government expect
the Task Force to encourage a higher level of employer commitment to MAs, but also that
its work, alongside that of the LSC, will contribute to improved retention and completion
118
rates. The formal aims of the Task Force are:
•
to increase the opportunities available for young people to participate in high quality
Modern Apprenticeship programmes with a range of employers; and
•
to recommend effective and innovative ways of ensuring that Modern Apprenticeships
respond to the changing needs of both employers and young people.
The Task Force will have a particular focus on increasing the number of smaller employers
119
offering MAs and will report to the Government and the Learning and Skills Council.
However, its advice and suggestions will not constitute the only agenda for further change.
Recent Green and White Papers on the education of 14 to 19 year olds have revealed the
Government’s intention to deliver apprenticeships in alternative ways whilst simultaneously
consolidating new routes into MA programmes. There will be a ‘programme-led’ MA option,
allowing some young people to acquire the Technical Certificate and key skills in an
institutional setting, before signing an apprenticeship agreement with an identified
120
employer and undertaking on-the-job training. Student Apprenticeships, giving students
in post-16 full-time education the opportunity to undertake work experience and vocational
understanding of quality improvement processes such as self-assessment and inspection. The
provisions of the LSDA report are examined in more detail in chapter 4.
115
The 2002 education Green Paper stated that, “The entitlement will also apply to those without
such GCSEs but who are endorsed as suitable following Entry to Employment provision and who
have acquired the necessary basic skills” (14-19: extending opportunities, raising standards (Cm 5342,
Department for Education and Skills, 2002), p. 37).
116
Pre-Budget Report 2002 (Her Majesty’s Treasury, Cm5664, November 2002), paragraph 3.86.
117
‘Apprenticeships come of age to plug skills gap’ (Her Majesty’s Treasury Press Release, 25
February 2003). The advantages of greater employer involvement in MAs, according to the Chairman
of the Learning and Skills Council, included benefits to business and benefits to the economy. It was
also necessary “for an inclusive society”.
118
House of Commons Official Report. Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) (Volume 401, No. 62, 13 March
2003, col. 406W, London: The Stationery Office).
119
‘Apprenticeships come of age to plug skills gap’ (Her Majesty’s Treasury Press Release, 25
February 2003). It might be problematic for the Task Force to measure its impact on increasing the
number of employers involved in MAs because neither the LSC nor the DfES currently knows how
many participate in the scheme, even though the Cassels Report recommended that the LSC collect
the “Details of all employers participating in apprenticeships” (Modern Apprenticeships: The Way to
Work. The Report of the Modern Apprenticeship Advisory Committee, p. 26).
120
14-19: extending opportunities, raising standards, p. 37.
25
______________________________________________________________________________________
121
learning alongside their qualifications, and the Entry to Employment (E2E) programme ,
122
targeting those not yet ready for apprenticeship, will both create fresh pathways into MAs.
Proposals for some young people to focus more substantially on vocational options from the
123
age of 14, aiding progression into an apprenticeship, have also been aired. Lastly, in a
significant move, the Skills Strategy White Paper lifted the public funding age cap to enable
124
those aged over 25 to participate. It also focused on the subsequent need to evaluate how
the design of MAs might need to change to reflect the likely higher qualification level of
older participants. Indeed, there is a pertinent need for this already: recent research has
revealed that, “In stark contrast with traditional apprentice recruitment patterns, fewer than
one in five recruits to the AMA (all sectors) are aged 16, whereas nearly half of all recruits are
125
aged 19 to 24 years old”.
121
From August 2003, those young people not ready or able to enter an MA will join Entry to
Employment, which will replace Other Training and offer help with literacy, numeracy and ICT
skills to aid progression onto an FMA, sustained employment or further vocational learning
st
opportunities. See 21 Century Skills – Realising Our Potential: Individuals, Employers, Nation, p. 79 and
Government supported, work based learning for young people in England 2001/02: volumes and outcomes
(Department for Education and Skills, Statistical First Release 27/2002, 24 October 2002). See also
Parliamentary Written Answer by Ivan Lewis MP (House of Commons Official Report. Parliamentary
Debates (Hansard) (Volume 404, No. 87, 28 April 2003, col. 235W, London: The Stationery Office).
122
14-19: opportunity and excellence, pp. 28-29.
123
st
21 Century Skills – Realising Our Potential: Individuals, Employers, Nation, p. 79.
124
Ibid, p. 81. The White Paper announced that, with immediate effect, those starting an MA at any
th
point up to their 25 birthday would be permitted to complete it. Beyond this, the implementation of
the policy would be “managed over a period of time” to take account of budget limitations and the
need to reflect the higher skills base of potential adult apprentices in the design of MAs (p. 81).
125
A. Fuller & L. Unwin, ‘Does Apprenticeship Still Have Meaning in the UK?’ The fact that a large
proportion of AMA participants is aged over 18 raises the prospect that some may already possess
Level 3 qualifications. Enabling those aged over 24 to participate might exaggerate this trend. As far
as such individuals are concerned, progression through an AMA will not increase their attainment
level and in turn will not increase the proportion of the workforce with intermediate qualifications.
26
______________________________________________________________________________________
3
Modern Apprenticeships: content,
delivery, funding and participation
As the previous chapter illustrated, MAs are best viewed as a labour market programme
rather than an institution, having gradually evolved through successive bouts of reinvention
126
of the youth programmes typified by the YTS. This process of evolution has continued
throughout the life of the MA, itself shaped by a series of interventions aimed primarily at
bolstering its rigour. This chapter seeks to provide an overview of the qualification today, its
constituent parts, how it is delivered and funded, and levels of participation both by
employers and young people.
3.1 Content
MA frameworks were originally developed by the NTOs and this responsibility has been
taken on by their successor bodies, the SSCs.127 Frameworks are approved by the
Apprenticeship Approvals Group (formerly the Modern Apprenticeship and National
Traineeship Advisory Group (MANTRA)), whose membership includes the DfES, the
Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) and the LSC (including local LSCs).128 MAs
exist at two levels, Foundation Modern Apprenticeship (FMA) and Advanced Modern
Apprenticeship (AMA), which share some common characteristics and train to Level 2 and
Level 3 respectively. FMAs should last for a minimum of 12 months, with a minimum
129
training period of 24 months for the AMA. Both are based principally around the
achievement of an NVQ (FMA to Level 2, AMA to Level 3) to equip the apprentice with
the occupational skills necessary to demonstrate competence in the chosen area. In order to
obtain the NVQ, Modern Apprentices are subject to work-based assessment undertaken by a
130
trained (in the majority of cases, external) assessor.
126
P. Ryan & L. Unwin, ‘Apprenticeship in the British ‘training market’’. The authors note the six relaunches that converted the YTS of 1982 into the FMA in 1999 (p. 111).
127
For background information on NTOs see “A Short History of National Training Organisations”,
th
17 October 2001, www.nto-nc.org/newsite99/latestnews/nr-2001/17_10a.htm.
128
Funding Arrangements for Work Based Learning for Young People in 2002/03 (Learning and Skills
Council, Circular 02/13, July 2002), pp. 9-10 and Requirements for Funding Work Based Learning 2003/04
(Learning and Skills Council, July 2003).
129
Funding Arrangements for Work Based Learning for Young People in 2002/03, p. 14.
130
A recent DfES survey found that for 64% of Modern Apprentices the assessment was carried out
solely by an external assessor, for 16% it was undertaken by an external assessor and an internal
assessor, and in 18% of cases it was undertaken solely by an internal assessor. See T. Anderson & H.
Metcalf, Modern Apprenticeship Employers: Evaluation Study, p. 41.
27
______________________________________________________________________________________
All FMAs and AMAs also require apprentices to achieve, as a minimum, key skills
qualifications in communication and application of number (FMAs to Level 1, AMAs to
Level 2). Additionally, all AMAs include a Technical Certificate to provide underpinning
technical knowledge and skills relevant to the NVQ, delivered through a taught programme
of off-the-job learning. This is not currently a formal requirement for FMAs, though SSCs
might nevertheless choose voluntarily to include requirements for underpinning knowledge
within FMA frameworks. On top of these mandatory requirements, SSCs may specify any
additional qualifications in specific techniques or skills perceived as relevant to the
occupation. These include non-NVQ qualifications such as the BTEC National Diploma
131
and other single certificates. SSCs also have the discretion to determine which other key
skills units or qualifications, and at what level, are appropriate for each industry sector.132
3.2 Delivery
MAs are open to all employers, regardless of size, whose business or service is covered by an
MA framework.133 Employers may participate in MAs in two principal ways, to differing
134
degrees of involvement. On the one hand, in addition to employing the apprentice and
providing them with appropriate work experience, the employer may be registered as the
training provider for the MA and would consequently assume responsibility for the provision
135
of all training and assessment. Employers might choose to be the registered provider if, for
example, they possessed a dedicated in-house training department and qualified training
136
staff. Alternatively, another organisation, such as a private training company, would be
registered as the training provider with the employer just taking responsibility for the work
137
138
experience element of the MA. The majority of employers follow the latter path. They
might lack the resources necessary to support all elements of the apprenticeship training, or
their decision could simply reflect their satisfaction with the level of service offered by their
139
training provider.
131
A. Fuller & L. Unwin, ‘Creating a ‘Modern Apprenticeship’: a critique of the UK’s multi-sector,
social inclusion approach’.
132
Funding Arrangements for Work Based Learning for Young People in 2002/03, p. 10.
133
A. Fuller & L. Unwin, ‘Creating a ‘Modern Apprenticeship’: a critique of the UK’s multi-sector,
social inclusion approach’.
134
The vast majority of apprentices are employed and paid a wage by their employer, with the rate of
pay agreed by the employer and the individual apprentice. Source: Parliamentary Written Answer by
Ivan Lewis MP, House of Commons Official Report. Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) (Volume 398, No.
33, 21 January 2003, col. 251W, London: The Stationery Office).
135
The training provision might be sub-contracted to a third party, but the employer would retain the
responsibility for its organisation.
136
Employers might consider that, by becoming the registered training provider, they would be in a
better position to control the quality of training, to match training more closely to skill needs, and to
fit the training around the demands of the job. See T. Anderson & H. Metcalf, Modern Apprenticeship
Employers: Evaluation Study, p. 24.
137
Ibid, p. 22.
138
Anderson & Metcalf’s research revealed that at least 59% of the 1,500 employers surveyed were not
the registered training provider, although an employer being the training provider was more common
among participating organisations in the public sector (44%) than among private sector organisations
(29%). See T. Anderson & H. Metcalf, Modern Apprenticeship Employers: Evaluation Study, pp. 22-23.
139
Ibid, p. 25.
28
______________________________________________________________________________________
There are approximately 1,368 training providers in England delivering intermediate level
140
training. Of this total, 29% are private training companies, 18.5% further education
colleges, 17% single employers and 13.9% represent employer groups such as Group
Training Associations (GTAs)141 and chambers of commerce.142 Private training companies
and further education colleges between them account for approximately 58% of all trainees
on intermediate level training, although employer group training organisations train 25.4% of
143
all AMAs and 9.3% of all FMAs. Employer groups have a particularly prominent role in the
provision of AMAs in traditional sectors such as construction (48.2%), engineering (46.3%),
144
Even in business
manufacturing (45.9%) and print, media and design (38%).
administration, multi-employer bodies offer 26.2% of all Advanced and Foundation Modern
145
Apprenticeships.
3.3 Funding
The LSC has responsibility for the planning and funding of work based learning for young
people in England up to the age of 24. For MAs, the LSC provides funding to cover the
training costs of all mandatory elements of MA frameworks, whilst the employer pays the
146
147
apprentice a wage. Funding is provided at a national rate , is weighted according to
programme and sector (see Tables 3a and 3b below) and flows to the training provider with
which the LSC has a contract. 20% of the national rate is dependent on the successful
completion of the MA, thus giving training providers an incentive to ensure that their
148
apprentices finish the whole framework. For learners over 19 years old, employers are
expected to contribute to the cost of training and the national rates include a 25% reduction
149
to reflect this assumed contribution. Although previously funding was only available to 1624 year olds, the Government announced in its Skills Strategy White Paper that the upper
age cap would be removed, “over a period of time”, in order to open access to AMAs to
140
Source: H. Gospel & J. Foreman, ‘Good practice needs a helping hand’ (CentrePiece, Volume 8,
Issue 2, Summer 2003), p. 17.
141
GTAs are not-for-profit, local associations of mainly small and medium-sized employers who
combine to share the costs of training and to obtain economies of scale. They have their origins after
the Second World War in engineering, steel and foundry work and other manufacturing industries,
but in the 1960s their numbers grew and, with the support of the Industrial Training Boards, they
expanded to new sectors such as road transport and retailing. Since the 1970s, some GTAs have
ceased to exist, some new ones have been created and some have been bought out as private
companies. Most have diversified both into training in areas related to their core activities and into
unrelated sectors. Latterly, GTAs have also begun to work with those larger companies outsourcing
their training. Source: H. Gospel & J. Foreman, The Provision of Training in Britain: Case Studies in
Inter-Firm Coordination (Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics and
Political Science, Discussion Paper 555, December 2002), p. 12.
142
Source: H. Gospel & J. Foreman, ‘Good practice needs a helping hand’, p. 17.
143
Ibid, p. 17.
144
Ibid, pp. 17-18.
145
Ibid, p. 18.
146
Employers will also, of course, incur costs through releasing apprentices to spend time training offthe-job.
147
The LSC introduced a national approach to funding work based learning in April 2001.
148
Funding Arrangements for Work Based Learning for Young People in 2002/03, p. 4.
149
Ibid, p. 11.
29
______________________________________________________________________________________
150
suitably qualified or experienced adults.
151
in the period between 1997 and 2002.
Table 3a:
Foundation Modern Apprenticeships: national funding rate for 2003/04152
Occupational sector
Agriculture
Construction
Engineering
Manufacturing
Transportation
Management & Professional
Business Administration
Retailing & Customer Service
Leisure, Sport & Travel
Hospitality
Hair & Beauty
Health, Care & Public Services
Media & Design
Table 3b:
National rate for 16-18 year
olds (£)
4,174
4,421
5,394
2,936
5,412
3,625
3,148
3,148
3,360
3,148
5,235
3,148
3,572
National rate for 19-24 year
olds (£)
2,202
2,719
2,719
2,030
2,719
2,374
2,043
2,043
1,884
2,043
2,839
2,202
2,202
Advanced Modern Apprenticeships: national funding rate for 2003/04
Occupational sector
Agriculture
Construction
Engineering
Manufacturing
Transportation
Management & Professional
Business Administration
Retailing & Customer Service
Leisure, Sport & Travel
Hospitality
Hair & Beauty
Health, Care & Public Services
Media & Design
150
In all, an estimated £1 billion was spent on MAs
National rate for 16-18 year
olds (£)
5,705
10,080
10,876
10,593
9,267
6,791
5,447
5,023
5,447
5,659
6,296
5,447
8,807
st
National rate for 19-24 year
olds (£)
3,767
4,842
6,036
6,606
6,089
4,059
3,767
3,767
3,767
3,767
3,767
3,767
4,722
21 Century Skills – Realising Our Potential: Individuals, Employers, Nation, p. 81. The Government
already supports the Rail Skills Award pilot for adult apprentices in the rail industry and the LSC has
local flexibility to fund some apprenticeship training for adults. Source: Parliamentary Written Answer
from Ivan Lewis MP, House of Commons Official Report. Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) (Volume 402,
No. 72, 26 March 2003, col. 287W, London: The Stationery Office).
151
Parliamentary Written Answer by Margaret Hodge MP, House of Commons Official Report.
Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) (Volume 385, No. 143, 07 May 2002, col. 86W, London: The
Stationery Office). Mrs Hodge also stated the Government’s intent to invest an additional £180
million over the period 2001-04 “to support and further develop MAs”, whilst also promising
sufficient resources for the LSC to meet its 2004 participation target.
152
Tables 3a and 3b are taken from Requirements for Funding Work Based Learning 2003/04 (Learning
and Skills Council, July 2003).
30
______________________________________________________________________________________
3.4 Participation
Extraordinarily, neither the LSC nor the DfES is currently able definitively to ascertain
153
exactly how many employers are involved in MAs. However, research conducted in 2002
for the Department revealed that 5% of those employers surveyed had been involved with
154
AMAs over the previous 12 months, whilst 4% had been involved with FMAs. Use of MAs
was found to be significantly more prevalent among larger organisations. The use of MAs
was also marginally higher amongst those employers who had recruited 16-24 year olds in
the last year, the qualifications being utilised by 14% of these respondents to train young
155
employees.
Detailing the number of young people participating in work-based training generally and
MAs in particular is a much less problematic proposition. Before the rapid rise in staying-on
rates in full-time education and training post-16, around a third of 16 year olds left school to
start work-based training. This proportion had fallen to approximately one in eight by the
156
mid-1990s, the large majority of whom were on Government-supported schemes. Now,
nearly a quarter of all 16 year olds chooses to study for occupationally-specific
157
qualifications and approximately 23% of young people currently enter an MA before they
158
are 22. Indeed, there were 234,100 young people on Modern Apprenticeships at the start
of November 2002, although the number of learners on AMAs had fallen by 4,300 compared
to the corresponding period in the previous year, whilst numbers on FMAs had increased by
159
19,600. As a result, there were, for the first time, more individuals ‘in-learning’ on FMAs
than on AMAs. See Table 3c below.
153
The Cassels Report recommended in 2001 that, “Details of all employers participating in
apprenticeships should be held by the LLSC, coded by locality and the frameworks they offer. This
database should be available to NTOs and the Connexions Service” (Modern Apprenticeships: The Way
to Work. The Report of the Modern Apprenticeship Advisory Committee, p. 26).
154
D. Spilsbury, Learning and Training at Work 2002 (Department for Education and Skills, Research
Report 399, March 2003), p. 89.
155
Ibid, pp. 90 & 103. 10% of those respondents who had recruited 16-24 year olds over the course of
the previous 12 months reported that some of their recruits were on FMAs, with 4% reporting that
young employees were on AMAs. Nevertheless, the company’s internal training scheme was by far
the most commonly mentioned training initiative for young employees, used by 44% of respondents
who had recruited 16-24 year olds.
156
J. Payne, Choice at the end of compulsory schooling: A research review (Department for Education and
Skills Research Report RR414, 2003), p. 56.
157
14-19: extending opportunities, raising standards, p. 35.
158
‘Learning and Skills Council to lead on delivering Modern Apprenticeships’ (Learning and Skills
Council Press Release, 12 June 2002).
159
Source: Government supported further education and work-based learning for young people on 1 November
2002 – Volumes (Learning and Skills Council Statistical First Release ILR/SF01, 31 March 2003), p. 9.
The number of starts on AMAs has fallen from 76,800 in 1999/00 to 54,100 in 2001/02, whilst the
number of starts on FMAs has risen from 88,300 to 108,300 over the same period (Government
supported further education and work-based learning for young people on 1 November 2002 – Volumes, p. 10).
31
______________________________________________________________________________________
Table 3c:
Numbers (thousands) in work-based learning on 1 November of each
160
academic year from 1999/2000 to 2002/2003, by programme strand
Year
Advanced
MA
1999/00
132.2
2000/01
133.6
2001/02
117.6
2002/03
113.3
* Includes E2E pathfinders
FoundationM
A
59.6
89.4
101.2
120.8
NVQ learning
Life Skills
Total
85.3
57.0
47.2
39.6
0.7
6.8
7.8
10.4*
277.8
286.7
273.8
284.0
Although there are approximately 150 different MA frameworks, covering a wide variety of
161
occupations, a select few account for the majority of all those starting apprenticeships.
During the 12 months to April 2003, ten AMA frameworks accounted for 71% of all AMA
starts and ten FMA frameworks for 82% of all FMA starts. See Table 3d.
Table 3d:
Modern Apprenticeship frameworks with the most starts in the 12
162
months to April 2003.
Sector framework
Starts in the 12 months to
April 2003
% of all starts in the 12
months to April 2003
5,686
4,902
4,166
3,973
3,444
3,380
3,297
3,305
2,758
2,155
11.0%
9.4%
8.0%
7.7%
6.6%
6.5%
6.4%
6.4%
5.3%
4.2%
37,066 (51,888)
71.4%
16,201
14,943
12,876
12,011
10,626
10,196
6,661
5,102
4,913
3,937
13.7%
12.6%
10.9%
10.2%
9.0%
8.6%
5.6%
4.3%
4.2%
3.3%
97,466 (118,233)
82.4%
AMAs
Motor Industry
Engineering Manufacture
Customer Service
Hospitality
Construction
Early Years Care & Education
Business Administration
National Electrotechnical Industry
Health & Social Care
Travel Services
Total (All AMA starts)
FMAs
Hospitality
Business Administration
Construction
Retailing
Hairdressing
Customer Service
Health & Social Care
Early Years Care & Education
Engineering Manufacture
Motor Industry
Total (All FMA starts)
160
Ibid, p. 9.
A searchable list of some of the MA frameworks available can be found on the MA website at:
www.realworkrealpay.info/LSC/LSC_employer/whats_available/default.htm.
162
Information kindly provided by the Learning and Skills Council’s Policy and Development Unit,
01 July 2003.
161
32
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4
Weaknesses in Modern
Apprenticeship provision
The MA system is currently blighted by some key weaknesses, including the variable
quality of training provision, low completion rates and the supply-led structure of the
163
programme. We explore the five main flaws below.
4.1 Training provision
One of the fundamental failings of the MA system, the principal contributor to the “sorry
tale” described by the Chief Inspector of the Adult Learning Inspectorate (ALI) in his 2002
164
annual report, is to be found in the shortcomings of training providers. Shockingly, the ALI
classified almost three-fifths (58%) of work-based training providers as “inadequate to meet
165
the reasonable needs of learners” in 2001-02. Similarly, the ALI and the Office for
Standards in Education (Ofsted) voiced criticisms of sub-standard provision of work-based
training in their first joint annual report on post-16 education and training in England,
166
published in April 2003. This report found that almost a fifth of the further education
colleges inspected were inadequate and that almost a quarter had unsatisfactory leadership
163
The IoD has commented previously on the quality concerns afflicting MAs. See R. Lea, Education
and training: A business blueprint for reform (Institute of Directors Policy Paper, June 2002), p. 150 and
R. Wilson, The Government’s plans for the 14-19 phase of education: an assessment (Institute of Directors
Policy Paper, May 2003), pp. 25-26.
164
Annual Report of the Chief Inspector 2001-02 (Adult Learning Inspectorate, 2002), p. 13. The Chief
Inspector also wrote, “On the face of it, poor achievement rates, poor grades, the inconsistency of
standards from area-of-learning to area-of learning, from place to place, paint a depressing picture” (p.
18).
165
See Annual Report and Accounts 2002-03 (Adult Learning Inspectorate, July 2003), p. 6 and Annual
Report of the Chief Inspector 2001-02, p. 5. In a report published in 2002, the Learning and Skills
Development Agency (LSDA) concluded that, “The concept of delighting rather than satisfying does
not appear to be widely held, and reinforces earlier observations about the lack of strategic vision in
many providers” (M. Hughes, Making the grade: a report on standards in work-based learning for young
people (Learning and Skills Development Agency, June 2002), p. 36). Even this censure does not quite
encapsulate the weakness of the inspection grades awarded during the first nine months of the ALI,
where the proportion of grades 4 and 5 (i.e. unsatisfactory or very weak) reached 51%. See M.
Hughes, Making the grade: a report on standards in work-based learning for young people, p. 11.
166
The Learning and Skills Act 2000 gives Ofsted the responsibility for the inspection of colleges in
the further education sector and requires that such inspections be carried out jointly with the ALI. In
addition, the Act also requires Ofsted to carry out, with the ALI’s assistance as necessary, area-wide
inspections of provision for 16-19 year olds.
33
______________________________________________________________________________________
167
and management, a situation it described as “disturbing”. Whilst inspectors had found that
the majority of lessons were well taught, their judgement that over 1,400 lessons were less
than satisfactory was deemed “a major concern that needs to be addressed as a matter of
168
urgency”. Worse, the quality of work-based learning was poorer than other college
provision: over two-fifths, 43%, of work-based provision was assessed as unsatisfactory or
169
very poor.
The story of highly variable standards in work-based training is not an especially new one,
170
though MAs have only been subject to inspection since 1998. The first Training Standards
Council (TSC) annual report, published in 1999, revealed that inspectors had been left with
“an impression of uneven quality across the sector, from the marvellously good to the
171
dismally poor”. Half of all providers inspected in the period from May 1998 to February
172
1999 had been awarded at least one grade that was less than satisfactory or poor. Even
more alarming is the subsequent accelerating deterioration in the inspection grades awarded
for work-based learning. As Table 4a below illustrates, the proportion of grades 1 and 2
(outstanding or good) fell from 42% in 1998 to 19% in 2002 and the proportion of grades 4
and 5 (unsatisfactory or poor/very weak) rose from 11% to 42% over the same period.173
167
College and Area-wide Inspections 2001/2002 (Adult Learning Inspectorate and Office for Standards in
Education, April 2003), p. 2. It should be noted that, when the current round of inspections started,
the inspectorates were asked first to visit the colleges that had low grades from the previous round. In
the ALI Chief Inspector’s opinion, “It is unlikely that a quarter of all general further education
colleges will be found wanting” (‘The lost three million’ (Talisman, Issue 18, Adult Learning
Inspectorate, April 2003), p. 1). The Chief Inspector also commented that, although the complexity
of work-based learning programmes could affect the consistency of their delivery, “weak providers
cannot be absolved of responsibility”, even if “the dreadful average results achieved are not just a
case of human error among trainers” (p. 1).
168
College and Area-wide Inspections 2001/2002, p. 18.
169
Ibid, p. 3. The report concluded, “Some trainees develop useful practical skills, but achievement
rates are too low and workplace training is often poorly planned. Initial assessment of trainees is often
inadequate and assessment of progress during programmes is weak. Employers are not sufficiently
involved in their employees’ training programmes. Colleges should pay closer attention to the
management and quality assurance of their work-based provision” (p. 3).
170
Modern Apprenticeships: The Way to Work. The Report of the Modern Apprenticeship Advisory Committee, p.
12.
171
Reaching New Standards – Annual Report of the Chief Inspector 1998-1999 (Training Standards Council,
1999), p. 5.
172
Ibid, p. 8.
173
The grade descriptors used by the TSC and ALI are similar, with grade 1 denominating
outstanding provision; grade 2 good provision; grade 3 satisfactory provision; grade 4 less than
satisfactory provision (ALI – unsatisfactory); and grade 5 poor provision (ALI – very weak). Care must
be taken when directly comparing TSC and ALI inspection grades as there are differences between
the Common Inspection Framework now used in work-based inspections and the framework formerly
used by the TSC.
34
______________________________________________________________________________________
Table 4a:
Inspection grades for
174
areas/areas of learning)
work-based
training
(all
occupational
Year
Grade 1
Grade 2
Grade 3
Grade 4
Grade 5
1998-1999
(TSC)
5% (39)
37% (304)
47% (385)
10% (82)
1% (6)
Total
inspections
816
1999-2000
(TSC)
4% (34)
33% (285)
46% (392)
14% (121)
3% (22)
854
2000-2001
(TSC)
3% (39)
30% (371)
45% (554)
20% (249)
2% (27)
1,240
2001-2002
(ALI)
2% (11)
18% (113)
38% (246)
36% (231)
6% (40)
641
The hastening decline evident in the first year of the ALI was of such concern to its Chief
Inspector that he asked the DfES to commission the LSDA to investigate. The uncertainty
in the period leading up to and immediately following the inception of the LSC was found
to have had a significant impact on providers’ readiness for inspection. However, the LSDA
also concluded that the decline in the grade profile in work-based learning was “too stark to
175
be entirely explained by the introduction of the new post-16 arrangements”. More
significant were the problems caused by the switch from assessment of competence at work
to the development of knowledge and skills in a work context, a change to which training
providers and the funding bodies had been slow to adapt. On the publication of the LSDA
report in 2002, the Chief Inspector of the ALI commented, “work-based provision…is not
good enough. Although excellent provision does exist, too few of our young people are
getting the quality of vocational training that they should rightfully expect”.176 Patently, if
the quality of training provision does not improve markedly, the Government will fail in its
undertaking to ensure that “the whole range” of MA programmes “reach the standards of
the best in [the] world”.177
174
Source: TSC annual reports from 1998-1999, 1999-2000, 2000-2001 and ALI annual report 20012002.
175
M. Hughes, Making the grade: a report on standards in work-based learning for young people, p. 11 & p. 3.
176
‘Work-based learning for young people must improve: Hodge’ (Department for Education and
Skills Press Notice 2002/120, 11 June 2002). The ALI had previously found that examples of ‘worldclass’ training shared some common characteristics, including the fact that the majority were
employers training their own staff; that the providers concerned invested substantial resources in
addition to Government funding; and that a large proportion were in engineering or manufacturing, or
in service industries such as health or defence. See ‘Most work-based training is inadequate, says
report’ (IRS Employment Review, Issue 759, September 2002).
177
Developing a National Skills Strategy and Delivery Plan: Progress Report (Department for Education and
Skills, 2003), p. 26.
35
______________________________________________________________________________________
4.2 Attainment
In 1998, David Blunkett declared that, “MAs are a quality concept in the same league as A
178
levels”. Conceptually, this may remain true, but the experience of the programme in
practice has sometimes proved disappointing, especially with regard to attainment rates.
Despite the fact that the number of young people achieving a level 3 NVQ while on AMAs
179
180
has increased by 27% since 1997 , this was from a meagre base and overall rates of
attainment in MAs remain unacceptably low. The ALI reported that only 31% of
Foundation Modern Apprentices and 36% of Advanced Modern Apprentices successfully
completed their training in 2001-02, once again describing the average performance as
181
“inadequate”. Performance was also found to vary considerably according to sector. In
AMAs, the proportion of apprentices completing their apprenticeship framework ranged
182
from 59% in engineering to only 16% in hospitality. Disturbingly, the bottom quarter of
providers in the area of hospitality, sports, leisure and travel equip “under one in 10 of the
young people who start training with a completed modern apprenticeship”.183 Variations in
achievement according to area or learning appear to be narrower in FMAs, but the average
184
achievement rates are still dismal.
The ALI was forced to conclude not only that the standard of training experienced by many
of the approximate 300,000 trainees in work-based learning was poor, but also that “Their
chance of receiving a good training, a decent preparation for a career, is largely determined
185
by the sector they enter”. The joint annual report published with Ofsted noted that
apprentices’ success in achieving qualifications was also affected by low retention rates, poor
178
‘Modern Apprenticeships – the popular choice for school leavers – Blunkett’ (Department for
Education and Employment Press Notice 1998/0574, 11 December 1998).
179
Department for Education and Skills Departmental Report 2003 (Department for Education and Skills,
Cm 5902, May 2003), p. 107.
180
The achievement rate of a full NVQ level 3 as part of an AMA was 23% in the academic year
August 1996 to July 1997 and 30% in the academic year August 1997 to July 1998. It rose to 40% in
the academic year August 1998 to July 1999 and again to 50% in the academic year August 1999 to
July 2000. Information presented in a Parliamentary Written Answer by Ivan Lewis MP. See House of
Commons Official Report. Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) (Volume 399, No. 47, 11 February 2003, cols.
693W-694W, London: The Stationery Office). In a subsequent Written Answer, Mr Lewis stated that,
“Over half of Advanced Modern Apprentice trainees now complete their level 3 NVQ”. House of
Commons Official Report. Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) (Volume 401, No. 62, 13 March 2003, col.
406W, London: The Stationery Office).
181
Annual Report of the Chief Inspector 2001-02, p. 16. The assessment process itself was highlighted as a
weakness or in need of further attention in over half of training providers, whilst internal verification
was three times as likely to be cited for its weakness as for its strength (p. 17). The completion rates
for Modern Apprenticeships compare unfavourably with those in apprenticeship programmes in other
European countries (approximately 75% to 85%). See ‘Sweet bird of youth’ (IRS Employment Review,
Issue 751, 13 May 2002).
182
Annual Report of the Chief Inspector 2001-02, p. 20.
183
Ibid, pp. 11-12.
184
As noted above, the Training Standards Council commented in a 2000 report on MAs that the
peculiarities of the funding process and the separation of key skills training provided “incentives
towards non-completion”. In addition, 20% of the engineering apprentices covered by the report were
in jobs that were too narrow to cover NVQ requirements. See Modern Apprenticeships: A Survey Report
by the Training Standards Council (Training Standards Council, 2000), p. 17.
185
Annual Report of the Chief Inspector 2001-02, p. 13.
36
______________________________________________________________________________________
assessment practice and insufficient opportunities for assessment in the workplace, with
many learners “taking an excessively long time” to complete the NVQ and apprenticeship
186
framework. This, in turn, meant that too many Modern Apprentices left the programme
with no qualifications to show for the skills they had acquired. Others drop out early: in
retailing and customer service only 51% of apprentices studying for AMAs remained ‘on187
programme’ after one year.
Disappointingly, the latest figures released by the LSC paint an even gloomier picture.
Using data from its Individualised Learner Record, the Council revealed that only 26% of
learners leaving AMA programmes and 22% of those leaving FMAs in 2001-02 successfully
188
completed their MA framework. In total, of the 157,100 leavers from MA programmes,
approximately 119,396 (76%) left without completing the full requirements of the MA
189
framework. The data also demonstrates widely differing success rates by area of learning.
38% of apprentices following AMAs in engineering, technology or manufacturing completed
their framework in 2001/02, compared to 16% of apprentices on retailing, customer service
and transportation AMAs.190 For FMAs, 46% of ICT apprentices successfully completed
their framework, an achievement matched by just 15% of those engaged on apprenticeships
191
in health, social care and public services.
Whilst MA completion rates are too low and drop out rates too high, it is informative to put
them into context. 64% of trainees starting AMA (Level 3) programmes in 2001/02 had not
192
previously achieved a full Level 2 qualification. Furthermore, West and Steedman have
shown that there are over two thousand different vocational qualifications approved for use
by those aged under 18, a fragmentation which naturally makes it easy for young people to
193
The authors demonstrate
select an inappropriate qualification to study towards.
subsequent high non-completion rates in a wide range of vocational qualifications, and also
that a significant proportion of those who fail to complete nevertheless proceed successfully
to complete a different qualification (see Table 4b below).
186
College and Area-wide Inspections 2001/2002, p. 27.
Annual Report of the Chief Inspector 2001-02, p. 14.
188
Further Education and Work Based Learning for Young People – Learner Outcomes in England 2001/02
(Learning and Skills Council, Statistical First Release, 24 July 2003), p. 21. Learners who leave
learning to take up employment are not recorded as having achieved their learning aim.
189
Ibid, p. 21. This figure is the author’s calculation from data given in Table 4.
190
Ibid, , p. 22.
191
Ibid, p. 22.
192
Ibid, p. 6.
193
J. West & H. Steedman, Finding Our Way: Vocational Education in England (Centre for Economic
Performance, London School of Economics and Political Science, May 2003), p. 13.
187
37
______________________________________________________________________________________
Table 4b:
194
Non-completion in post-16 vocational qualifications
Vocational qualification
GNVQ Advanced
GNVQ Intermediate
BTEC First
BTEC National
City & Guilds
RSA
NVQ (full time education)
NVQ (work-based)
Percentage who terminated
early or failed
43%
41%
44%
34%
72%
58%
49%
38%
Of which the percentage
successfully completing a
different qualification
}26%
}31%
34%
35%
}16%
MAs are therefore not unique in being scarred by low completion rates. It is conceivable that
some of those failing to fulfil all requirements of their MA framework proceed to complete a
different qualification. It should also be borne in mind that, regardless of low completion
rates, a high proportion of Modern Apprentices nevertheless gains employment. According
to official data, of the Advanced Modern Apprentices who left their programme in the period
195
from August 1999 to July 2000, 85% were in a job, 93% in a ‘positive outcome’ and only 5%
196
were unemployed. However, to acknowledge these contextual matters is not to justify or
excuse low completion rates in MAs. Baldly, the keystone of the Government’s work-based
vocational education and training policy must deliver a better than one in four probability of
participants completing all of its constituent components. As the former Secretary of State
for Education and Employment, David Blunkett, remarked about vocational programmes,
“Weakness in standards and completion rates feed back rapidly to young people as poor
197
quality options, which they then do their best to avoid”.
4.3 Composition and demand of frameworks
One of the central components in all MA frameworks is the NVQ, required to Level 2 in
FMAs and Level 3 in AMAs. NVQs were introduced in 1988 and are competence-based,
learners being assessed on their ability successfully to demonstrate a series of activities to
194
Source: J. West & H. Steedman, Finding Our Way: Vocational Education in England, p. 14. The
authors build on Youth Cohort Study data presented in J. Payne, Student Success Rates in Post-16
Qualifications – Data from the England and Wales Youth Cohort Study (Department for Education and
Employment Research Report RR272, May 2001). This report used the Youth Cohort Study to
investigate whether students entering post-compulsory study at 16 in 1996 had achieved the
qualifications they started studying by the time of the second sweep of the survey in 1998.
195
This is defined as being in a job, full-time education or other Government supported training.
196
Government supported, work based learning for young people in England 2001/02: volumes and outcomes
(Department for Education and Skills, Statistical First Release 27/2002, 24 October 2002). Strikingly,
these statistics implied that Advanced Modern Apprentices’ achievement of a full qualification at
Level 3 or above did not necessarily impact significantly upon their employment rates. Whilst
achievement rates of qualifications at Level 3 or more varied markedly from sector to sector, from a
lowly 21% in Retailing to 67% in Engineering Manufacturing, employment rates were remarkably
stable, ranging from 77% in Health and Social Care to 87% in both the Motor Industry and Business
Administration.
197
D. Blunkett, Education into Employability: The role of the DfEE in the Economy, paragraph 46.
38
______________________________________________________________________________________
pre-defined ‘occupational standards’. The qualifications were enthusiastically developed so
that, by May 1995, 95% of occupations were covered by standards and 794 types of NVQ had
198
been created. However, by 1996, just 42 awards were accounting for 82% of the total
number of certificates and NVQs represented a minority of the vocational awards
199
bestowed. Meanwhile, traditional vocational qualifications retained their popularity.
Indeed, “Between 1995 and 2001, 1,875,000 N/SVQs were awarded, compared with
200
2,849,000 other vocational qualifications during the same period”.
NVQs have attracted considerable criticism. There have been complaints about their
bureaucracy, complexity and cost. Ultimately, in the MA context, the feature that
distinguished NVQs from other vocational qualifications, its competence-based approach,
came to be criticised as a principal weakness. The focus on practical skills came at the
expense of underpinning technical knowledge and theory. As a result, the qualifications are
201
not seen as providing a “sufficiently robust basis for initial vocational training” and have
202
also been described as “educationally impoverished”. Such concerns motivated the
introduction of Technical Certificates as a mandatory element of MA frameworks to shore
up the required level of technical knowledge and understanding, a move warmly welcomed
203
by the IoD.
Despite the problems with NVQs, they retain extensive support from business. IoD research
in 2000 revealed that the overwhelming majority of respondents who used NVQs held a
204
favourable view of the qualification as a form of training. Similarly, a recent DfES survey
of 1,772 employers offering NVQs/SVQs revealed that four-fifths, 81%, were either very
satisfied or fairly satisfied with the qualifications. Conversely, only 8% described themselves
198
A. Wolf, Does Education Matter? Myths about Education and Economic Growth, p. 75. Now, of the 2,015
approved vocational qualifications for those under 18, some 1,000 are NVQs. See H. Steedman & J.
West, ‘Clearing the jungle’ (CentrePiece, Volume 8, Issue 2, Summer 2003), p. 11.
199
A. Wolf, Does Education Matter? Myths about Education and Economic Growth, p. 76.
200
M. Hughes (ed.), A Basis for Skills: coherence and quality or relevance and flexibility in vocational
qualifications? (Learning and Skills Development Agency, 2003), p. 3. ‘Other vocational qualifications’
is the accepted term used by the LSC to describe vocational qualifications outside the National
Qualifications Framework, but eligible for public funding. These include the traditional craft
qualifications offered by City and Guilds; the professional qualifications offered by BTEC/Edexcel;
and the many other qualifications offered by minor awarding bodies such as the Northern Council for
Further Education (NCFE) (p. 17).
201
D. Macleod, A Basis for Skills: reviewing LSDA support for skills (Learning and Skills Development
Agency, 2003), p. 36.
202
P. Ryan & L. Unwin, ‘Apprenticeship in the British ‘training market’’. For a discussion of the
inclusion of general education within continental European vocational preparation, and on the
comparative deficiencies of the NVQ and other British vocational qualifications, see A. Smithers,
‘Vocational Education’, in S. Lawlor (ed.), Comparing Standards: Academic and Vocational, 16-19 year
olds. The Report of the Politeia Education Commission (Politeia, 2002), pp. 135-146.
203
In their second report, the National Skills Task Force recommended that “…separate assessment
of knowledge and understanding within or, preferably, completion of a Related VQ [vocational
qualification] alongside, the relevant NVQ should be the norm for all publicly funded Foundation and
Modern Apprenticeship programmes”. See Delivering Skills for All: Second Report of the National Skills
Task Force, Recommendation 3(ix), p. 42.
204
R. Wilson, Vocational Qualifications and Training (IoD Research Paper, December 2000), p. 13.
39
______________________________________________________________________________________
205
as not very satisfied or not at all satisfied. Nevertheless, the IoD considers that, to inject
greater flexibility into MA frameworks and thereby reduce the current ‘one-size-fits-all’
approach of MAs, there is a good case for permitting SSCs to substitute the NVQ with other
industry standard qualifications, where available and where suitable. Such a move should act
to increase the relevance and attractiveness of MAs to a broader spectrum of employers.
Another central component of all MA frameworks is the key skill requirements. However,
this element has also been identified as a problem by the ALI on account of the lack of
206
commitment towards it displayed by learners and employers and the fact that providers
struggle to deliver successful training. Indeed, in 2001-02 it was cited as a weakness or in
207
need of development in nearly half of the providers inspected, and a strength in just 6%.
The ALI noted how key skills training was often left to the end of the programme or simply
ditched, thus becoming a significant cause of poor achievement in MAs. It concluded that
key skills training at work was failing and that national policy “should be reviewed without
208
precondition”. Where MAs are concerned, the IoD believes that a mandatory entry
requirement of GCSEs at A* to C in English and mathematics should be introduced for all
FMAs and AMAs. In most cases, this would facilitate the discontinuation of key skills units
in these subjects within apprenticeship frameworks.
4.4 Delivery
MAs are supply driven, rather than demand driven. Contrary to the traditional pattern of
apprenticeship recruitment, with employers determining the number of apprentices
recruited to suit their requirements, MA recruitment is orchestrated by the Department for
Education and Skills, the Learning and Skills Council and supported by a network of
209
training providers. Indeed, “The key relationship in the Modern Apprenticeship in
England is that between the local Learning and Skills Councils, which are set AMA and
FMA targets by the national LSC, and their local training providers”.210 The LSC has itself
205
D. Spilsbury, Learning and Training at Work 2002, p. 94. 35% of employers with 5 or more
employees offering NVQs/SVQs were very satisfied, 46% were fairly satisfied, 7% were not very
satisfied and 1% were not at all satisfied.
206
Indeed, the LSDA noted in their 2002 that, “Key skills were almost universally seen by those
[training providers] interviewed as a burden and barrier to achievement…Many reported that trainees
were refusing to engage in key skills sessions and that employers were supporting their trainees in
this”. See M. Hughes, Making the grade: a report on standards in work-based learning for young people, p.
37.
207
Annual Report of the Chief Inspector 2001-02, p. 15.
208
Ibid, p. 15. Similarly, the 2001 annual report of the Training Standards Council (the ALI’s forebear)
concluded, “The evidence is…that with very few exceptions, key skills are treated as a tiresome
distraction by trainee, provider and employer alike…Key skills are most often left until the end of a
modern apprenticeship programme – an NVQ gained, the last tranche of TEC funding collected –
and then quietly dropped”. See Reaching New Standards. Annual Report of the Chief Inspector 2000-2001
(Training Standards Council, 2001), p. 7. The negative effect of key skills on pass rates for the full
Modern Apprenticeship qualification was also noted in the joint annual report by the ALI and Ofsted.
See College and Area-wide Inspections 2001/2002, p. 5.
209
A. Fuller & L. Unwin, ‘Creating a ‘Modern Apprenticeship’: a critique of the UK’s multi-sector,
social inclusion approach’.
210
Ibid.
40
______________________________________________________________________________________
been set a target by the DfES to ensure that at least 28% of young people participate in MAs
211
212
by 2004. According to a recent report, the Government is “on course to meet the target”.
Partly as a corollary of the supply-led approach to the provision of MAs, employers have
tended to take a back seat to training providers in the provision of frameworks. Thus, in
Britain, “only around 5 per cent of all apprentices are directly recruited and trained by
employers. The remainder are the responsibility of the training provider who contracts with
213
the TEC/LSC to find an employer willing to take the young person” , and who may
214
subsequently ‘place’ apprentices with employers “with little regard to local skill needs”.
The sidelining of the employers also has the unfortunate consequence of distancing them
from their apprenticeship programmes. ALI inspectors found that employer involvement
was weak or in need of attention in 27 per cent of inspection cases. “Detailed knowledge of
NVQs and apprenticeships among both employers and learners was only rarely judged to be
215
a strength, even when the provision of good training at work was praised by inspectors”.
4.5 Progression
The Government envisages that young people in vocational education will follow one of two
principal routes. The first constitutes broad-based vocational learning within schools or
colleges, followed by vocational A Levels or BTEC, City and Guilds or similar awards. MAs
form the second route, with both leading on to Foundation Degrees and Graduate
216
Apprenticeships. However, the evidence suggests that only a minority of participants will
217
progress from an FMA to an AMA. Additionally, whilst the recent education White Paper
211
See the recent education White Paper, 14-19: opportunity and excellence (Department for Education
and Skills, 2003), p. 6, and the preceding Green Paper, 14-19: extending opportunities, raising standards,
pp. 36-37. This target, recommended by the Modern Apprenticeship Advisory Committee, became a
Public Service Agreement in 2002 (Modern Apprenticeships: the Way to Work. The Report of the Modern
Apprenticeship Advisory Committee. The LSC Implementation Plan in respect of Recommendations contained in
the Report (Learning and Skills Council, October 2002), p. 6). The report of the Modern
Apprenticeship Advisory Committee (the ‘Cassels Report’) had also recommended a target of 35% of
young people entering MAs by 2010, but this recommendation was not accepted by either the
Secretary of State or the Leaning and Skills Council.
212
Developing a National Skills Strategy and Delivery Plan: Progress Report, p. 26. The DfES has also
agreed a target with the Cabinet Office for the Civil Service as a whole, whereby 28 per cent of all
staff under 25 who are not already appropriately qualified will participate in an MA by 2004. See
Department for Education and Skills Departmental Report 2003, p. 107.
213
H. Steedman, Benchmarking Apprenticeship: UK and Continental Europe Compared, p. 17.
214
Ibid, p. 35.
215
Annual Report of the Chief Inspector 2001-02, p. 15. The evidence suggests that those employers,
either individually or collectively, who arrange apprenticeship programmes themselves gain better
inspection grades. See M. Hughes, Making the grade: a report on standards in work-based learning for
young people, p. 21.
216
R. Wilson, The Government’s plans for the 14-19 phase of education: an assessment, p. 24.
217
Around 10% of Foundation Modern Apprentices transfer to AMAs (LSC Management Information,
July 2002 to January 2003). However, not all of these transfers will represent a progression from a
completed FMA to beginning an AMA given that some talented young people will simply upgrade to
a more demanding programme without having first completed the FMA. Therefore the proportion
achieving a genuine progression will likely be lower than 10%. This is disappointing given that, to
quote a Government pamphlet published in 2000, “National Traineeships [now FMAs] were
41
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proclaimed that, “many young people progress to HE [higher education] and higher level
vocational qualifications after their apprenticeship”, it is not at all certain that this is a
218
particularly successful feature of MAs. Indeed, recent research has suggested that less than
219
one per cent of leavers progress to full-time higher education. Furthermore, within the
AMA, public money is only available to fund the attainment of qualifications up to Level 3,
220
so statistics on the type and volume of Level 4 qualifications achieved are not collected. If
MAs are to become a high-quality constituent of a coherent vocational pathway, they should
foster increased rates of progression from Foundation to Advanced courses and demonstrate
a greater aptitude to act as a ladder to higher education. Clearly, it is unrealistic and
unnecessary to expect all Advanced Modern Apprentices to progress to higher education.
Nevertheless, the appeal of a work-based pathway to young people is unlikely to be
enhanced if MAs or alternative options do not provide adequate opportunities for
progression to higher study or enhanced employment opportunities. Even in Germany, so
often regarded as possessing the exemplar apprenticeship system, “employers are having to
build in opportunities for apprentices to continue into higher education – otherwise they
221
cannot attract the quality of recruits to which historically they are accustomed”.
4.6 The Government’s response
The weaknesses in the quality of some MA programmes, the low completion rates and the
wide variation in performance between sectors, have been recognised by the Government
222
and the LSC. Indeed, the LSC is working towards a quality improvement programme
whose main elements, as detailed in the Skills Strategy White Paper, include:
introduced in 1997 to provide a clear progression to MAs [now AMAs]” (Vocational Education and
Training: A Framework for the Future (Department for Education and Employment, 2000)). David
Blunkett also referred to the envisaged progression route to AMAs through FMAs in his pamphlet,
Education into Employability: The role of the DfEE in the Economy, paragraph 47. He also wrote that the
Government was, “making a reality of the long-cherished aim that individuals should be able to
progress through the technical and vocational pathway all the way to a degree” (paragraph 49).
218
14-19: opportunity and excellence, p. 28.
219
A. Fuller & L. Unwin, ‘Creating a ‘Modern Apprenticeship’: a critique of the UK’s multi-sector,
social inclusion approach’.
220
A. Fuller & L. Unwin, ‘Does Apprenticeship Still Have Meaning in the UK?: the consequences of
voluntarism and sectoral change’ (forthcoming, 2003).
221
A. Wolf, Does Education Matter? Myths about Education and Economic Growth, p. 89. Wolf notes that
this is part of the wider German trend of a falling proportion entering apprenticeships and an
increasing number of young people entering higher education. She also remarks that, among GNVQ
students in England in the mid-1990s, “Far and away the most important thing they hoped for from
their courses was progress into higher education” (p. 91).
222
st
See, for example, the Skills Strategy White Paper: 21 Century Skills – Realising Our Potential:
Individuals, Employers, Nation, p. 80. The 14-19 White Paper acknowledged the variable quality of
some MA programmes and that completion rates were far too low. See 14-19: opportunity and excellence,
p. 11. The then Chief Executive of the LSC, John Harwood, told the House of Commons Education
and Skills Select Committee in December 2002 that, “…I will readily agree with you that the quality
of some work based learning is not what it needs to be…Quality is not as good as it needs to be and it
does need to improve and that is what we are here for” (The Work of the Learning and Skills Council
(Minutes of Evidence, Monday 9 December 2002, House of Commons Education and Skills
Committee, London: The Stationery Office, July 2003), paragraphs 52-53). In a speech to the Further
Education Funding Council on 16 February 2001, David Blunkett spoke of the Government’s desire
42
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-
boosting capability by encouraging the most successful employers to expand their
training provision beyond their own immediate needs;
fostering collaboration between training providers and establishing high quality
providers to replace those with no reasonable prospect of meeting minimum standards;
providing better training for staff delivering MAs, particularly those involved in
arranging and delivering learning leading to the new Technical Certificates;
developing guidance on the delivery of good workplace learning, with the assistance of
the Sector Skills Councils, for those sectors with no tradition of apprenticeships; and
supporting sectors that want to develop stronger progression routes from MAs to higher
level vocational qualifications, ensuring that different funding systems do not create
223
unnecessary barriers.
The IoD welcomes such initiatives. However, whilst many of them chime with our own
analysis of the current limitations and flaws of MAs, there are additional measures which the
LSC could adopt to improve further the quality of apprenticeships. These are detailed in
the final chapter of this paper.
to “to ensure that the completion and retention rates [in MAs] are dramatically improved,
because…the
rate
of
qualifications
and
retention
is
not
acceptable”
(www.dfes.gov.uk/ma.consultation/news1.shtml).
223
st
Source: 21 Century Skills – Realising Our Potential: Individuals, Employers, Nation, p. 80.
43
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5
The use of Modern
Apprenticeships in IoD members'
organisations
5.1 Participation in Modern Apprenticeships
In a representative survey of IoD members conducted by NOP between August and
September 2000, 22% of respondents reported that their business used MAs to train their
224
staff. In the latest survey, this proportion dropped to 13% of respondents (see Table 5a
below). Nevertheless, although the number of members using MAs has seemingly fallen
over this period, the proportion reporting involvement remains above that revealed in the
latest DfES Learning and Training at Work survey, an annual series of employer surveys
investigating workforce development. In this survey, as noted in chapter 3, only 5% of
respondents had been involved in AMAs over the course of the previous year, with 4%
225
having been involved in FMAs.
Table 5a:
Does your organisation currently use the system of Modern
226
Apprenticeships as a way of training your employees?
Percentage of respondents
13% (66)
86% (428)
1% (6)
Yes
No
Don’t know
Size, sectoral and regional differences
Our survey revealed variations in the use of MAs in terms of firm size, economic sector and
geographical location. Firstly, directors from organisations employing 1-20 employees were
less likely to report that their organisations engaged in MA training than were directors from
224
See R. Wilson, Vocational Qualifications and Training, p. 9.
D. Spilsbury, Learning and Training at Work 2002, p. 89. This survey also revealed that only 14% of
those respondents who had recruited 16-24 year olds in the previous year used MAs to train some of
their young recruits. By contrast, the company’s internal training scheme was by far the most
commonly mentioned training initiative for employees in this age group.
226
There were 500 respondents to this question.
225
44
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227
larger businesses. Only 4% (6) of respondents from the smallest organisations in our survey
used MAs, compared to 18% (30) of respondents from firms employing 21-100 employees,
18% (9) of directors from organisations employing 101-200 employees, and 19% (21) of
respondents from organisations with more than 201 staff members. Generally speaking,
smaller firms are less likely to engage in formal training programmes in comparison to larger
businesses as they typically lack the necessary resources and can less easily find operational
cover for employees absent on training programmes. Smaller businesses are also less likely to
228
possess human resources or personnel departments to organise training schemes. Recent
research has also illustrated that smaller companies are significantly less likely to be aware of
229
training initiatives such as MAs than larger organisations.
The propensity of respondents from different economic sectors to participate in MAs varied
sharply. Just 4% (6) of directors involved in business and professional services reported that
their organisations currently used MAs, compared to 25% (26) of respondents from the
manufacturing sector and 26% (14) of respondents from the sector incorporating
230
construction, mining and transport. This finding not only echoes other research
demonstrating that the use of MAs tends to be concentrated in particular forms of
employment, it is also indicative of the fact that a select number of MA frameworks
produces most apprentices (see section 3.4).
The Modern Apprenticeship Advisory Committee noted in 2001 how “LSC areas differ
considerably in the degree to which employers participate in the programme. Nationally
there are just under ten modern apprenticeship places for each 1,000 employees, but this
231
proportion varies by area from over 15 to less than five”. Regional variation was also
revealed in statistics published in 2002, which showed AMA participants to be considerably
232
more numerous in the North West of England than in other regions of the country. The
results of our own survey also revealed a slight regional bias in the use of MAs. Whereas a
fifth, 20% (22), of respondents from the North reported that their organisations currently
227
This trend, with the likelihood of employer involvement with MAs increasing according to
organisation size, seems to be representative of the national picture. See D. Spilsbury, Learning and
Training at Work 2002, p. 90.
228
See R. Wilson, Vocational Qualifications and Training, p. 9 and also R. Wilson, Skills Survey 2000
(IoD Research Paper, November 2000), pp. 19-20.
229
See D. Spilsbury, Learning and Training at Work 2002, p. 87. In this survey, 55% of employers with
5-24 employees had heard of AMAs and 42% were aware of FMAs. Among employers with 500 or
more employees, 83% were aware of AMAs and 76% knew about FMAs. The figures relate to the
responses of 3,434 employers with 5 or more employees.
230
The propensity to use MAs was also shown to vary according to industrial sector in the Learning and
Training at Work 2002 survey. In a pattern similar to that uncovered in our own investigation,
respondents from the manufacturing sector, and those involved in agriculture, mining, utilities and
construction were more likely to be involved in MAs than employers based in the finance and
business services sector. See D. Spilsbury, Learning and Training at Work 2002, p. 90.
231
Modern Apprenticeships: The Way to Work. The Report of the Modern Apprenticeship Advisory Committee, p.
31.
232
See Education and Training Statistics for the United Kingdom 2002 edition (National Statistics, London:
The Stationery Office, 2002), p. 53. In March 2002, there were 22,400 AMA participants in the North
West, compared to 15,200 in the West Midlands, 14,400 in the South East, 13,300 in the South West
and 12,500 in Yorkshire and the Humber. Participants in AMAs were less likely to be located in
London (9,700), the Eastern region (8,900) and the North East (8,700).
45
______________________________________________________________________________________
used MAs, the corresponding figures for respondents from the South and the Midlands were
233
12% (33) and 11% (10) respectively.
5.2 Participation in Modern Apprenticeships by
programme: Foundation and Advanced
There are two types of Modern Apprenticeship programmes: Foundation Modern
Apprenticeships (FMAs), designed for 16-18 year olds and providing training to NVQ level
2; and Advanced Modern Apprenticeships (AMAs), designed for 19-24 year olds and training
apprentices to NVQ level 3. Our results reveal that approximately a third (36%) of those IoD
members using MAs were not certain of the type of MA their apprentices were engaged on.
It is conceivable that directors of larger firms would be less likely to be intimately
acquainted with the intricacies of their organisation’s training procedures than would be
respondents from smaller companies. Indeed, of the 24 respondents who could not be sure
of the type of MA used by their company, 10 represented organisations employing more
than 201 employees. Larger companies are not only more likely to possess human resources
or personnel departments to organise training, they are more likely to employ dedicated
training managers to oversee their workforce development. In these circumstances, senior
directors from large companies may be expected to be more distant from the minutiae of MA
training in their firms.
Nevertheless, most respondents using MAs as a method of training some of their employees
were able to distinguish between the two phases of apprenticeship training. 35% (23) of
respondents revealed that their organisations employed both Foundation Modern
Apprentices and Advanced Modern Apprentices. Just over a fifth, 21% (14), had apprentices
solely on the FMA programme and a smaller proportion, 8% (5), employed only Advanced
Modern Apprentices. See Table 5b below.
Table 5b:
234
Which Modern Apprenticeship programme are your employees on?
MA programme
Foundation Modern Apprenticeship (FMA)
Advanced Modern Apprenticeship (AMA)
Both FMA and AMA
Don’t know
Percentage of respondents
21% (14)
8% (5)
35% (23)
36% (24)
233
The Learning and Training at Work 2002 survey found that MA use was least likely to be reported by
employers based in the South East (5%), with employers situated in the East Midlands (14%) being
the most likely to participate in this particular training initiative. See D. Spilsbury, Learning and
Training at Work 2002, p. 91. Other research among MA employers conducted for the DfES has
suggested that Modern Apprentices have a different geographical distribution compared to other
young employees, being over-represented in the North East and North West and under-represented
in London and the East of England. See T. Anderson & H. Metcalf, Modern Apprenticeship Employers:
Evaluation Study, p. 11.
234
There were 66 responses to this question.
46
______________________________________________________________________________________
Size, sectoral and regional differences
The significant proportion of directors who did not know on which programme their
apprentices were placed, allied to the relatively small proportion of respondents using MAs
overall, renders it difficult to draw meaningful conclusions from the apparent differences
235
between responses according to firm size, economic sector and geographical location.
Nevertheless, the results are suggestive of a trend whereby larger organisations and those
based in the South were most likely to have apprentices on both FMA and AMA
programmes. 50% (15) of directors from organisations employing 101 or more employees
used both FMA and AMA programmes, compared to 22% (8) of respondents representing
companies with between 1 and 100 staff. 43% (14) of MA users based in the South employed
both FMA and AMA apprentices, compared to 28% (3) of respondents from the Midlands
and 26% (6) of respondents from the North. The latter were more likely to have only
Foundation Modern Apprentices (29% (7)) than their counterparts located in the Midlands
(19% (2)) or the South (17% (6)).
5.3 Modern Apprenticeship participation by
framework
Respondents to our survey used a considerable range of Modern Apprenticeship
programmes to train their employees. Although Engineering Manufacturing, Business
Administration and Customer Service were the three most popular frameworks, directors
also reported employees following MAs in a diverse range of other occupations.
Table 5c:
236
What Modern Apprenticeships does your organisation use?
Type of Modern Apprenticeship used
Engineering Manufacturing
Business Administration
Customer Service
Construction
Motor Industry
Electrical
Health and Social Care
Financial Services
Retailing
Information Technology
Hotel and Catering
Accountancy
Others
Don’t know
Percentage of respondents
42% (28)
32% (21)
20% (13)
12% (8)
9% (6)
7% (5)
5% (4)
5% (3)
5% (3)
4% (3)
4% (2)
3% (2)
28% (18)
2% (1)
235
Research conducted for the Department for Education and Skills suggests that Advanced Modern
Apprentices are more likely to be employed in larger establishments compared with Foundation
Modern Apprentices. See T. Anderson & H. Metcalf, Modern Apprenticeship Employers: Evaluation
Study, p. 10.
236
There were 66 responses to this question.
47
______________________________________________________________________________________
A significant proportion of directors used MAs in a wide variety of areas other than those
listed in the table above. Examples of other MA frameworks used by respondents include
Plumbing; Occupational Health and Safety; Driving Goods Vehicles; Laboratory
Technicians; and Cleaning and Support Services. Several more respondents employed
Modern Apprentices on frameworks training in distribution, warehousing, accountancy and
management.
Size, sectoral and regional differences
Some small sample sizes render it problematic to draw significant conclusions from
variations in the data according to organisational size or industrial sector. Similar difficulties
affect the analysis of results by geographical location, although respondents from the
Midlands were slightly more likely to employ apprentices on an Engineering Manufacturing
framework (52% (5)) than were respondents based in the North (41% (9)) or the South (40%
(13)). By contrast, those organisations located in the North were more likely to report using
Modern Apprenticeships in Business Administration or Customer Service to train their
employees than were directors whose firms were based elsewhere in the country. Thus,
while just under a quarter (23% (8)) of respondents from the South used Business
Administration apprenticeships, the figure for those based in the North was 48% (11).
Similarly, while only 6% (2) of directors whose organisations were located in the South
trained employees using Modern Apprenticeships in Customer Service, the corresponding
figure for those organisations based in the North was over two-fifths (42% (9)).
5.4 Number of Modern Apprentices employed by IoD
members’ organisations
Taken together, IoD members participating in this survey employed a total of 731 Modern
Apprentices. This total includes 167 apprentices on FMA frameworks and 193 apprentices
on AMA frameworks, though not all directors were able to specify which programme their
apprentices were on. The mean number of Modern Apprentices employed by respondents
using MAs was nearly twelve, although this figure is inflated to a degree due to the fact that
a small number of organisations employed a large number of apprentices. Indeed, two
organisations each reported employing over one hundred Modern Apprentices. However,
most of those directors responding to our survey whose organisations used MAs tended each
to employ a relatively small number of apprentices. Over two-thirds (68% (45)) of all
respondents using MAs had between one and five Modern Apprentices in their employ.
This trend was most apparent for users of FMAs: 72% (27) of those members using FMAs
employed between one and five apprentices, compared to 59% (17) of those with
237
apprentices following an Advanced framework.
237
Overall, the mean number of apprentices employed was 4.91 for those respondents who knew their
apprentices were on FMA programmes and 8.84 for those who knew that their apprentices were
engaged on an AMA framework.
48
______________________________________________________________________________________
Table 5d:
238
How many Modern Apprentices does your organisation employ?
Number of apprentices
1-5 apprentices
6-10 apprentices
11-15 apprentices
16-20 apprentices
21-25 apprentices
26-30 apprentices
31 or more apprentices
Don’t know
Mean
Percentage of respondents using MAs
68% (45)
6% (4)
9% (6)
1% (1)
4% (2)
7% (4)
5% (3)
11.66
The pattern that emerges from these results appears largely to reflect the national picture.
Indeed, the vast majority of employers using MAs in a recent research project conducted for
239
the Department for Education and Skills employed five or fewer Modern Apprentices.
Size, sectoral and regional differences
Not unexpectedly, the data suggests that the larger organisations participating in our survey
tended each to employ a greater number of apprentices than did smaller businesses. While
89% (32) of organisations with between 1-100 staff employed fewer than six apprentices, the
corresponding figure for organisations employing more than 100 members of staff was just
43% (13). Indeed, organisations with 201 or more staff employed an average of 26.75 Modern
Apprentices, compared to an average of 1.99 Modern Apprentices employed at organisations
with between 1-20 staff members. As noted previously, larger organisations are more likely
to possess the resources and infrastructure necessary to support apprenticeship training than
small firms are. In turn, they better placed to be able to sustain a greater number of
240
apprentices than their smaller counterparts.
Due to the small sample sizes, it was difficult to draw significant conclusions from variations
in the data according to industrial sector. Regionally, respondents from the South were more
likely to employ a higher number of Modern Apprentices than were respondents from the
Midlands or respondents based in the North. The mean number of apprentices per firm was
17.82 in the South, 4.61 in the Midlands and 6.00 in the North.
238
There were 66 respondents to this question.
T. Anderson & H. Metcalf, Modern Apprenticeship Employers: Evaluation Study, pp. 14-15. The
authors suggested that this finding, together with the fact that employers’ apprentices tended all to be
following the same framework, offered scope to increase the overall number of apprentices by
encouraging employers both to take on a greater number and to widen the range of frameworks they
supported (p. 16).
240
In parenthesis, it is also worth remarking that in addition to their greater capacity to support
training, larger organisations might also require a larger number of apprentices to meet their business
needs.
239
49
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5.5 Members’ reasons for using Modern
Apprenticeships
Directors participating in our survey were motivated to use MAs as a method of training for a
number of different reasons. Both those organisations using FMAs and those using AMAs
emphasised the importance of solving skills shortages and upgrading the skills of their
existing workforces to their decision to recruit Modern Apprentices. Indeed, interestingly,
respondents using MAs were more likely to report that their organisation faced a skills gap
241
and found it hard to fill vacancies than were those respondents who did not use MAs.
Just over a fifth of directors whose organisations employed Foundation Modern Apprentices
cited the opportunity of training to their own requirements as reason for using MAs,
although this was much less important to those organisations employing Advanced Modern
Apprentices. It was also apparent that a strong tradition of recruiting apprenticeships had
influenced at least a tenth of those directors involved in Modern Apprenticeships to
participate in the initiative. See Table 5e below.
Table 5e:
Why did your organisation decide to recruit Foundation or Advanced
Modern Apprentices?242
Reason for recruiting
To solve skill shortages
To enable us to train to our own
requirements/do things our way
To upgrade skills of existing
workforce
Organisation has always recruited
apprentices
Difficulties in recruiting adult
workers with necessary skills
To improve staff retention
It is a recognised/good qualification
It is cheap/cost effective
An external training provider
persuaded us to recruit them
Others
Don’t know
FMA
35% (13)
21% (8)
AMA
31% (9)
3% (1)
18% (7)
15% (4)
11% (4)
15% (4)
11% (4)
-
10% (4)
6% (2)
6% (2)
4% (2)
7% (2)
2% (1)
2% (1)
28% (10)
-
24% (7)
10% (3)
241
20% (40) of those reporting a skills gap participated in MAs compared to 9% (26) who did not report
a skills gap. 20% (37) of those directors who found it hard to fill vacancies used MAs, against 12% (27)
of those not encountering this difficulty.
242
There were 65 responses to this question.
50
______________________________________________________________________________________
6
Modern Apprenticeship
recruitment
6.1 Method of recruitment
The results of our survey have shown those directors using MAs did so both as a means of
recruiting and training new personnel, perhaps in order to overcome skill shortages, and as a
way of training existing staff. These different stimuli are reflected in the methods of
recruitment used. Internal advertising (to existing employees) proved a much more
significant recruitment channel for those respondents looking to employ Advanced Modern
Apprentices (27% (8)) than it was for respondents seeking Foundation Modern Apprentices
(9% (3)). It is possible that this reflects respondents’ view of the AMA, a more demanding
framework, as a training vehicle with greater suitability for existing, non-apprenticed, staff.
The result may also be indicative of Foundation Modern Apprentices progressing to AMAs
with the same employer, although, as remarked in section 4.5, progression from FMAs to
AMAs appears to be unusual. A significant proportion of respondents deployed a
combination of both external and internal recruitment to fill their vacancies whilst directors
in the construction sector availed themselves of the services of the Construction Industry
Training Board (CITB).243 A small number of organisations relied on the recommendation of
apprentices by word of mouth. See Table 6a below.
243
The Industrial Training Act of 1964 created 27 Industrial Training Boards (ITBs) to levy money
from employers in order to pay for the training of employees in their sector. Most were scrapped in
the early 1980s, but the construction industry has retained such a board in the form of the CITB, one
of only two remaining ITBs. The CITB collects a levy from employers to support training and
undertakes on behalf of the industry many tasks associated with training that would otherwise be
undertaken by employers themselves. In the context of MA training, the CITB takes on much of the
recruitment and selection of potential apprentices and is also involved in the assessment of
apprentices during the period of apprenticeship training. See T. Hogarth & C. Hasluck, Net Costs of
Modern Apprenticeship Training to Employers, p. 19; and A. Wolf, Does Education Matter? Myths about
Education and Economic Growth, pp. 101-103.
51
______________________________________________________________________________________
Table 6a:
244
How did you recruit your Foundation/Advanced Modern Apprentices?
Method of recruitment
Advertised vacancy externally
Advertised vacancy internally (to existing employees)
A combination of both external and internal recruitment
Construction Industry Training Board (CITB)
Apprentices are recommended to us by word of mouth
Others
Percentage of
respondents using
FMAs
44% (17)
9% (3)
32% (12)
8% (3)
6% (2)
4% (2)
Percentage of
respondents
using AMAs
25% (7)
27% (8)
25% (7)
6% (2)
5% (1)
12% (3)
6.2 Typical recruiting age for Modern Apprentices
Modern Apprenticeships were originally designed in the expectation that the majority of
participants would be 16 to 17 year olds, although an ‘Accelerated Modern Apprenticeship’
245
was later developed to cater for 18 to 19 year olds already in receipt of GNVQs or A levels.
However, as noted in section 2.2, in practice nearly half of all AMA recruits are aged 19 to 24
years old and the Government announced in the Skills Strategy White Paper its
commitment towards the eventual phasing out of the current age cap for funding MAs
(presently 24). Among IoD members, the MA was predominately used to train younger
workers, a trend most pronounced for users of FMAs, but still discernible in the recruiting
ages of those participating in AMAs. Nevertheless, at least 16% of those respondents using
AMAs recruited individuals over the age of 21. See Table 6b below.
Table 6b:
246
At what age do you typically recruit your apprentices?
Age
16
17
18
19
20
21+
A variety of ages
Don’t know
Mean
Percentage of respondents
using FMAs
37% (14)
27% (10)
6% (2)
2% (1)
6% (2)
15% (6)
7% (3)
17.05
Percentage of respondents using
AMAs
21% (6)
6% (2)
13% (4)
5% (2)
3% (1)
16% (5)
20% (6)
15% (4)
18.43
6.3 Entry requirements for Modern Apprenticeships
Most apprentices are recruited directly by employers; others are placed with employers by
247
training providers. There are presently no mandatory national entry requirements for
244
There were 65 responses to this question.
H. Gospel, The Revival of Apprenticeship Training in Britain?, p. 11.
246
There were 65 responses to this question.
245
52
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Modern Apprenticeships, although an MA framework might specify a recommended level of
248
prior achievement. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that, in the main, employers
themselves do not tend to stipulate minimum entry qualification levels, preferring instead to
rely on interviews and tests to determine the ability and potential of applicants.249 A recent
DfES survey report revealed that there were no qualification requirements at all for 53% of
250
FMAs and 36% of AMAs open to external recruitment. The study postulated that, if
employers had difficulty judging the abilities of candidates in advance, they might recruit
251
individuals ill equipped to complete the MA, thereby contributing to low completion rates.
However, it should be borne in mind that an employer will typically take a multiplicity of
252
factors other than qualifications into account when recruiting. Thus, amongst those
respondents to the 2002 Learning and Training at Work survey who had hired 16 to 24 year
olds in the previous year, personal characteristics such as attitude, reliability and enthusiasm
were all more frequently cited factors than ability to do the job. As many respondents stated
that they had taken interpersonal and communication skills into account as had candidates’
253
qualifications.
Care must be taken when interpreting the results generated by our own survey, as the
absolute numbers involved are relatively small. However, it is clear that only a small
minority of those members using MAs set no entry requirements at all. Furthermore, whilst
a reliance on interviewing and testing is detectable in the selection procedures of some of
those using MAs, a greater proportion of directors preferred to set a requirement for formal
qualifications. 15% (6) of directors using FMAs and 14% (4) of directors using AMAs relied
247
Modern Apprenticeships: A Survey Report by the Training Standards Council, p. 7.
The Accounting AMA, for example, states that candidates should generally have either completed
an FMA in Accounting, or undertaken an A level standard of education. Applicants for the Vehicle
Body and Paint Operations FMA are expected to have GCSE grades D to F in English, mathematics
and a science-based subject. See www.realworkrealpay.info.
249
Research published by the Training Standards Council in 2000 indicated that approximately twothirds of employers did not stipulate minimum entry qualification levels. The TSC report also
concluded that, “Trainees are seldom assessed for their ability to be a modern apprentice. Employers
interview candidates to assess their suitability as employees, rather than as apprentices”. See Modern
Apprenticeships: A Survey Report by the Training Standards Council, p. 7. Prior educational achievement
appears to vary considerably among the different occupational areas. See Modern Apprenticeships: A
Survey Report by the Training Standards Council (Training Standards Council, 2000), p. 7 and T.
Anderson & H. Metcalf, Modern Apprenticeship Employers: Evaluation Study, p. 31.
250
T. Anderson & H. Metcalf, Modern Apprenticeship Employers: Evaluation Study, p. 31.
251
Ibid, p. 31. Interestingly, whilst a significant proportion of participants in the IoD survey did not set
qualification requirements, completion rates for both FMA and AMA programmes were remarkably
high.
252
In 2000, the then Department for Education and Employment conducted a small research project
into the barriers preventing the take-up of MAs. It revealed that a significant consideration for small
and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) was to recruit new staff who could get on with their existing
workforce. “The ability to work together in a small company was often regarded as more important
than new recruits having previous experience or qualifications” (Barriers to take-up of Modern
Apprenticeships and National Traineeships by SMEs and specific sectors (Department for Education and
Employment Research Brief No. 205, June 2000), p. 2).
253
Factors taken into account included: personality, attitude, flexibility and reliability (39% of
respondents); interest, enthusiasm and willingness to learn (28%); specific skills and ability to do the
job (25%); qualifications (21%); interpersonal and communications skills (21%); experience (19%);
appearance (15%); common sense (14%); initiative or confidence (10%); intelligence (9%); and
references (4%). See D. Spilsbury, Learning and Training at Work 2002, p. 105.
248
53
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on interviewing to select candidates and a further 11% (4) of those employing Foundation
Modern Apprentices and 16% (5) of those employing Advanced Modern Apprentices used
either aptitude tests or practical skills tests to screen applicants. By way of contrast, 46% (17)
of those using FMAs and 50% (14) of those directors using AMAs specified that apprentices
possess formal qualifications prior to entry.
The table below illustrates the variety of approaches taken by directors towards the selection
of young people for places on apprenticeship programmes.
Table 6c:
What level of qualifications do you require for entry into your
254
organisation’s Modern Apprenticeship programme?
Entry requirement
No entry requirement
Selected entirely on interview
Selected using aptitude tests
Selected using practical skills tests
Less than 5 GCSEs at grades A* to C
Maths and English GCSE at grades A* to C
5 or more GCSEs at grades A* to C
Foundation Modern Apprenticeships
A levels
University degree
255
Qualified solicitors/having passed solicitors’ exams
Others
Don’t know
254
Percentage of
respondents
using FMAs
14% (5)
15% (6)
3% (1)
8% (3)
25% (9)
6% (2)
8% (3)
2% (1)
2% (1)
2% (1)
5% (2)
12% (4)
Percentage of
respondents using
AMAs
6% (2)
14% (4)
3% (1)
13% (4)
13% (4)
8% (2)
15% (4)
5% (1)
8% (2)
3% (1)
7% (2)
6% (2)
There were 65 responses to this question.
This seems to be an anomalous result as, to the author’s knowledge, Modern Apprenticeships do
not extend to law. It is conceivable, though perhaps unlikely, that a legal firm, whilst recruiting only
qualified solicitors, might subsequently train employees in other disciplines relevant to the running of
the business using MA frameworks.
255
54
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7
Delivering, supporting and
assessing Modern Apprenticeship
programmes in members'
organisations
7.1 Provision of off-the-job training
Prior to the introduction of Technical Certificates, now available in nearly all AMA
frameworks, though not currently required in FMA frameworks, apprentices were not
required to undertake any off-the-job training in the course of their MA. In practice, though,
most apprentices appear to receive some off-the-job training. In a recent DfES study of
256
1,500 MA employers, 82% of Modern Apprentices undertook some off-the-job training.
Similarly, the vast majority of those respondents to our own survey who used Modern
Apprenticeships to train some of their employees incorporated periods of off-the-job training
into the apprenticeship programme. It is interesting to note that, despite the absence of a
formal requirement for off-the-job training within FMAs, almost as many directors stated
that their Foundation Modern Apprentices were receiving such training (88%) as did those
directors employing Advanced Modern Apprentices (91%). See Table 7a below.
Table 7a:
Yes
No
257
Do your Modern Apprentices spend time training off-the-job?
Percentage of respondents using FMAs
88% (33)
12% (5)
Percentage of respondents using AMAs
91% (26)
9% (2)
Size, sectoral and regional differences
The small sample size means that it is difficult to identify variations according to
organisational size, sector or region. For the same reason it is unwise to place too much
credence on those patterns that emerged through the cross-referencing of data. This is
unfortunate, as the results hint at an interesting trend whereby those respondents not
256
T. Anderson & H. Metcalf, Modern Apprenticeship Employers: Evaluation Study, p. iii & p. 36.
Interestingly, for 90% of the MAs that included off-the-job training in this study, employers were
satisfied with the amount of such training provided (p. 38).
257
There were 65 responses to this question.
55
______________________________________________________________________________________
providing off-the-job training for their FMAs were much less likely to feel that MAs
equipped employees with the skills needed to do their jobs or that MAs brought significant
benefits to their business.
7.2 Arrangement of off-the-job training
The overwhelming majority of the Modern Apprentices employed by organisations
responding to our survey had access to off-the-job training and this training was most
frequently delivered on a regular day or block release basis at an external provider. Taken
together, 87% (34) of all respondents using MAs whose apprentices enjoyed periods of offthe-job training in addition to the learning undertaken on-the-job, stated that apprentices
were released regularly to establishments such as further education colleges or Group
Training Associations. There was very little variation in this pattern according to whether
apprentices were engaged on a Foundation or Advanced Modern Apprenticeship (see Table
7b below).
Table 7b:
How is the off-the-job training
258
Apprenticeships arranged?
Type of training
Regular day or block release at an external training
provider (e.g. FE college or Group Training Association
centre)
Occasional attendance at specific events (e.g. product
awareness, health and safety, IT)
A combination of day release and attendance at specific
events
Regular day or block release in your in-house training
centre
Others
element
in
your
Modern
FMAs
87% (28)
AMAs
84% (22)
6% (2)
9% (2)
3% (1)
4% (1)
2% (1)
3% (1)
2% (1)
-
Size, sectoral and regional differences
Unfortunately, the small size of both the overall sample and of some data values adversely
affected attempts to identify significant trends in the results. In particular, it was not
possible to determine whether there was a significant correlation between the organisation
of off-the-job training and the conferral of the right skills or significant business benefits.
Nor was it possible to ascertain, from these results, whether the arrangement of off-the-job
training impacted upon the likelihood of apprentices completing their framework. There
was no indication of noteworthy differences between organisations’ arrangement of off-thejob training according to their size, sector or location, although again the limited sample size
renders it problematic to establish this conclusively.
258
There were 59 responses to this question.
56
______________________________________________________________________________________
7.3 Duration of Modern Apprenticeships
According to the Adult Learning Inspectorate, most MAs last for at least a year. On average,
70% of those on AMA programmes and 66% of those on FMA programmes stay in learning
259
for at least a year. However, as noted in chapter 4, the ALI also revealed that a worryingly
large proportion of apprentices in certain sectors dropped out of their MA before the elapse
of 12 months. Clearly, such a pattern has a deleterious impact on apprentices’ likelihood of
completing their training and the Government was last year prompted to insist on a
260
minimum permitted duration for both FMAs (1 year) and AMAs (2 years).
Most respondents to our survey reported that their MA frameworks typically took between
two and four years to complete, with the average duration being approximately two and
three-quarter years. Given the high overall completion rate (see 7.4), it is perhaps to be
expected that the average duration of apprenticeships in respondents’ firms was higher than
the national average. However, it remains slightly surprising, in view of the lower level of
demand and the lack of a mandatory Technical Certificate, that the typical duration of FMA
frameworks was very similar to that of AMA frameworks.
Table 7c:
How long do your apprentices usually take to complete all aspects of their
261
apprenticeships?
Duration
Less than one year
One to two years
Two to three years
Three to four years
More than four years
Don’t know
Mean
Percentage of respondents
using FMAs
2% (1)
15% (6)
38% (14)
27% (10)
6% (2)
11% (4)
2.73
Percentage of respondents using
AMAs
6% (2)
11% (3)
37% (10)
28% (8)
9% (3)
9% (3)
2.76
7.4 Supporting Modern Apprenticeship training
Respondents to our survey revealed a strong network of support for Modern Apprentices
within their organisations. Approaching nine in ten (87% (58)) stated that every apprentice
in their employ was supervised by a more experienced member of staff. Three-quarters
(76% (50)) revealed that each Modern Apprentice was assigned a mentor whilst over a
quarter (28% (19)) reported the existence of a dedicated training department. See Table 7d.
259
Annual Report of the Chief Inspector 2001-2002, p. 20.
See ‘Learning and Skills Council to lead on delivering Modern Apprenticeships’ (Learning and
Skills Council Press Release, 12 June 2002).
261
During interviewing, respondents were reminded that in order to complete their apprenticeship,
Modern Apprentices must achieve either a Level 2 (FMA) or Level 3 (AMA) NVQ; key skills units; a
Technical Certificate (where appropriate); and any other qualifications or skill certificates specified in
the framework. There were 65 responses to this question.
260
57
______________________________________________________________________________________
Table 7d:
How is Modern
262
organisation?
Apprenticeship
training
supported
in
your
Percentage of respondents using MAs
87% (58)
Each apprentice is supervised by a more
experienced employee
Each apprentice is assigned a mentor
By a dedicated training department
Other
76% (50)
28% (19)
31% (20)
31% (20) of respondents described alternative support arrangements, with the overwhelming
majority (16 out of 20) volunteered by organisations employing 1-100 staff and almost half
(nine out of 20) originating from the manufacturing sector. One director told of apprentices
having regular reviews with senior management, another that the organisation had an
established programme of regular assessments and appraisals aligned with a ‘buddy’ system.
Others took the opportunity to give details of release of apprentices to attend external
courses and training. However, the most common support reported was that given by
external bodies and individuals, including the provision of advice, assessment and
supervision by training advisors/consultants, training companies, college lecturers/tutors and
trade bodies.
Size, sectoral and regional differences
The largest organisations in our survey, those employing 201 or more employees, were,
understandably, most likely to have a dedicated training department to support Modern
Apprenticeship training. 57% (12) of this group had this facility, compared to 24% (2) of
respondents employing 101-200 employees, 9% (3) of respondents employing 21-100
employees and 27% (2) of those respondents employing 1-20 staff.
Conversely, ensuring that a more experienced employee supervised apprentices was a
practice more common amongst those organisations employing 200 or fewer employees than
among the largest firms participating in the survey. All respondents employing between 1-20
and 101-200 staff used this arrangement, in addition to 92% (27) of respondents employing
21-100 staff. The respective figure for those respondents employing 201 or more workers
was 70% (15).
Both mentoring and training departments seemed slightly more prevalent among
respondents from the Midlands than other geographical regions, with these arrangements
reported by 90% (9) and 39% (4) of directors from this location respectively. However, as
noted previously, the numbers are rather small and one should probably not place too much
emphasis upon them.
262
There were 66 responses to this question. Respondents could select as many options as applicable.
58
______________________________________________________________________________________
7.5 Assessing Modern Apprenticeships: completion
rates, skill formation and business benefits
7.5.1 Completion rates
As was noted in section 4.2, achievement and completion rates in MAs are a disappointing
feature of the programme. Just over a third of young people on MAs achieves either the
relevant NVQ or successfully completes the whole framework, that is to say the NVQ,
Technical Certificate, key skills and any other qualifications or requirements specified by
263
the relevant SSC. Overall, only 24% of MA leavers completed their framework in 2001/02.
In stark contrast, completion rates in members’ MA programmes were very high, at
approximately 87% (see Table 7e). There are many potential reasons for this. Firstly,
members’ apprentices might have been engaged in frameworks with high completion rates.
Certainly, a large number of those participating in our survey reported using the
Engineering Manufacturing MA framework and, as the ALI has demonstrated, AMAs in
engineering have some of the highest rates of achievement. However, given that the
completion rates in engineering FMAs are much less impressive, allied to the fact that
members’ apprentices were also engaged in a wide range of frameworks that do not boast
impressive rates of completion, this is unlikely to be the principal explanation.
It is also conceivable that high completion rates might be a product of members recruiting
particularly able apprentices. Although there is no way of determining definitively the
quality of recruits, a rough proxy may be taken from the fact that a significant proportion of
directors was found to have insisted on the possession of qualifications as a condition of
entry onto their MAs (see section 6.3). However, given that directors’ propensity to stipulate
demanding entry requirements was not significantly different from the picture that emerges
from other survey evidence, this too may have to be discounted as a major factor. Perhaps a
more plausible explanation is to be found in the breadth of training enjoyed by apprentices
and the arrangements reported by members to support their learning. The vast majority of
apprentices was provided with off-the-job training, was supervised by a more experienced
employee and had a mentor, whilst over a quarter of directors reported that apprentices were
supported by a dedicated training department (sections 7.1 and 7.4).
263
In 2001/02, 26% of AMA leavers achieved the full framework and 10% achieved the NVQ alone. In
the same period, 22% of FMA leavers achieved the full framework and 11% achieved the NVQ only.
Taken together, 24% of MA leavers achieved their full framework in 2001/02 whilst 11% achieved
just the NVQ. See Further education and work based learning for young people – learner outcomes in England
2001/02 (Learning and Skills Council Statistical First Release ISR/SFR25, 24 July 2003), p. 21.
59
______________________________________________________________________________________
Table 7e:
Approximately what percentage of your apprentices successfully
264
completes the full Modern Apprenticeship programme
Percentage of apprentices
completing all elements of
their framework
0-10%
11-20%
21-30%
31-40%
41-50%
51-60%
61-70%
71-80%
81-90%
91-100%
Don’t know
Mean
Percentage of respondents
using FMAs
Percentage of respondents using
AMAs
4% (1)
2% (1)
4% (1)
17% (6)
19% (7)
38% (14)
17% (6)
87.94
5% (1)
3% (1)
3% (1)
5% (1)
5% (1)
10% (3)
58% (16)
12% (3)
87.31
7.5.2 Non-completion
Although the completion rates for apprentices on MA frameworks as reported by
respondents to our survey were creditably high, over two-fifths of those using FMAs and a
fifth of those using AMAs did report some apprentices failing to fulfil all requirements of
their apprenticeship. See Table 7f below.
Table 7f:
Yes
No
Don’t know
Did any of your organisation’s Modern Apprentices fail to complete
265
the full MA programme?
Percentage of respondents
using FMAs
45% (17)
44% (16)
11% (4)
Percentage of respondents using
AMAs
20% (6)
70% (20)
9% (3)
Clearly, with only a limited number of respondents reporting that some of their apprentices
had not completed all mandatory requirements of the Foundation or Advanced Modern
Apprenticeship, the analysis of the reasons given for non-completion is not going to be
conclusive. However, although the sample size is extremely small, the two most commonlycited reasons were that, firstly, the apprentice was unsuitable or incapable of completing all
aspects of the apprenticeship (44% (9)); and, secondly, that the apprentice found alternative
employment in a different organisation before completing their MA (38% (7)).
264
There were 65 responses to this question. During interviewing, respondents were reminded that in
order to complete their MA, apprentices must achieve the NVQ, key skills units, Technical
Certificate (where appropriate) and any other qualifications or skill certificates specified in the
framework.
265
There were 65 responses to this question.
60
______________________________________________________________________________________
The Cassels Report postulated that one reason for apprentices failing to complete their MA
266
might be that employers did not place great emphasis on completion. In these
circumstances, an employer might move an apprentice to another job within the organisation
before the apprentice had fulfilled the requirements of his or her apprenticeship. The
Chairman of the LSC has even suggested that drop out rates from work-based learning
courses are at least partly attributable to “less scrupulous employers” who tempt trainees
away from training courses with the offer of employment before they have attained the
qualifications they were working towards.267 The former hypothesis is not sustained by DfES
research that has revealed that the vast majority of employers using MAs do not take a casual
268
attitude towards the completion of programmes , nor is it borne out by our results. Indeed,
whilst finding alternative employment was a common cause of apprentices’ non-completion,
this seems to have been at the employee’s, rather than the employer’s, instigation. Whilst a
range of explanations was cited, from dismissal to personal problems, no respondent
reported that they had instigated the relocation of the apprentice from their MA programme
to another role within the organisation. Additionally, in those cases where an apprentice
found alternative employment, it was almost exclusively by moving to a different firm rather
than to a different post within the same organisation.
7.5.3 Skill formation within Modern Apprenticeships
In a representative survey of IoD members conducted in 2000, 22% of respondents used
MAs and 80% of these directors believed that the programme equipped employees with the
269
skills needed to do their jobs. Those employers participating in the latest survey rated
MAs’ efficacy in equipping employees with the requisite skills even more highly. Overall,
approximately nine in ten of those members using MAs regarded them as effective vehicles
for successful skill formation. Furthermore, as Table 7g demonstrates, the satisfaction rating
for FMAs was virtually identical to that for AMAs.
266
Modern Apprenticeships: The Way to Work. The Report of the Modern Apprenticeship Advisory Committee, p.
12.
267
In evidence to the House of Commons Education and Skills Select Committee, during a discussion
about quality in work-based learning, including MAs, LSC Chairman Bryan Sanderson stated: “One
of the other problems, Chairman, is that one of the reasons for not finishing is that less scrupulous
employers, particularly in the south east where there are skill shortages, stand around places which are
offering these courses and do not let students finish. They say, “You do not need to finish. We will
take you now and pay you X and Y”, so quite a big slice of the drop-out rate is due to people getting
jobs before they have their qualifications”. See The Work of the Learning and Skills Council (Minutes of
Evidence, Monday 9 December 2002, House of Commons Education and Skills Committee, London:
The Stationery Office, July 2003), paragraph 53). The IoD’s own research has not found ‘poaching’ to
be a significant problem. Only 22% of respondents to a 1999 survey were deterred from training their
employees by a concern that staff would leave after having received training. See R. Wilson, The Skills
and Training Agenda: The Results of an IoD Survey (IoD Policy Paper, August 1999), p. 16.
268
A recent DfES research paper reported that, for 78% of apprenticeships, employers considered
completion to be “very important”. See T. Anderson & H. Metcalf, Modern Apprenticeship Employers:
Evaluation Study, p. 68. Whilst it seems fair to argue that low employer interest in completion could,
in principle, affect the apprentice’s likelihood to complete, this does not appear to be a factor on a
scale that could plausibly account for such low overall achievement rates in MAs.
269
See R. Wilson, Vocational Qualifications and Training, pp. 9-10.
61
______________________________________________________________________________________
Table 7g:
Yes
No
Do you think that Modern Apprenticeships equip your employees with
270
the skills that they need to do their jobs?
Percentage of respondents
using FMAs
90% (33)
10% (4)
Percentage of respondents using
AMAs
89% (25)
11% (3)
7.5.4 Business benefits gained through participation in
Modern Apprenticeships
Through investing in training, businesses may reap such benefits as greater employee
morale, reduced labour turnover and enhanced productivity. However, it does not
271
necessarily increase an organisation’s profitability. Respondents to our survey were very
positive about the impact of MAs on their business. Three-quarters of respondents using
MAs felt that the use of this training programme resulted in significant benefits for their
business. Again, FMAs were rated just as highly as AMAs in their conferral of significant
benefits (see Table 7h).
Table 7h:
Yes
No
Don’t know
Do you think that Modern Apprenticeships have had significant
benefits for your business?272
Percentage of respondents
using FMAs
74% (28)
18% (7)
8% (3)
Percentage of respondents using
AMAs
76% (21)
22% (6)
2% (1)
In the 2000 IoD survey, 65% of respondents using MAs considered that MAs had been
beneficial to their business. Interestingly therefore, although proportionally fewer members
taking part in the 2003 survey used MAs than did directors surveyed in 2000, they were
273
more likely to consider that MAs had been beneficial.
270
There were 65 responses to this question.
R. Wilson, Vocational Qualifications and Training, p. 10.
272
There were 65 responses to this question.
273
See R. Wilson, Vocational Qualifications and Training, p. 10. Intuitively, one might link the high
degree of satisfaction with MAs to the impressive completion rates of apprentices employed by
members’ organisations. Indeed, 64% of those directors considering that MAs equipped employees
with the skills needed to do their jobs reported completion rates of between 81% and 100%.
Similarly, three-quarters (75%) of directors feeling that the use of MAs had brought significant
benefits to their business reported approximate completion rates of over 80%.
271
62
______________________________________________________________________________________
8
Non-participation in Modern
Apprenticeships
8.1 Respondents’ reasons for not using Modern
Apprenticeships
As we have seen, only 13% (66) of the directors interviewed by NOP used MAs to train their
employees. The 86% (428) who did not use the programme gave a veritable cornucopia of
reasons for their non-participation. The most frequently cited reason for not using MAs,
given by 29% (122) of respondents, was that the organisation concerned tended to recruit
ready-qualified staff. See Table 8a.
Table 8a:
Why does your organisation not currently use the system of Modern
274
Apprenticeships as a way of training some of your employees?
Reason for not using MAs
Organisation tends to recruit ready-qualified staff
Organisation’s training needs met in a different way
Our business or service is not covered by a Modern
Apprenticeship framework
Not applicable/not relevant/we don’t need apprentices in our
industry
Organisation too small to participate in Modern
Apprenticeships
Organisation lacks the infrastructure and resources to
support MA programmes
Did not know about the MA programme
We employ older/mature/experienced people
Organisation provides training that does not result in
employees acquiring formal qualifications
It’s very costly/not cost effective
Lack of interest/commitment from trainees/can’t recruit the
right people
Can’t retain them/just training people up for other
companies
Percentage of respondents
29% (122)
19% (79)
14% (59)
12% (51)
12% (50)
8% (33)
7% (28)
6% (25)
3% (14)
3% (14)
3% (12)
3% (12)
Continued overleaf:
274
There were 428 respondents to this question. Respondents were permitted to nominate more than
one reason, if applicable.
63
______________________________________________________________________________________
We don’t require physical skills/we don’t manufacture
275
anything
Don’t need more employees/apprentices/not recruiting
We are considering it/looking into it now
276
Trainees expect too much money/pay rates too high
Too heavily regulated/red tape/frightened of falling foul of
regulation
Hasn’t worked well for us/don’t end up with good
employees with the right skills
277
Insufficient Government financial support
Other
Don’t know
* Value is less than 1 per cent.
2% (9)
2% (9)
2% (7)
1% (4)
1% (3)
1% (3)
*% (1)
3% (12)
5% (20)
It is clear that directors’ non-participation in MAs is primarily due to the fact that their
organisations have other preferred methods of recruiting and training their staff. Taken
together, 56% (240) of those organisations represented in our survey who did not use MAs
either recruited ready-qualified or older, more experienced staff, or met their training needs
in a different way, including through training that does not result in employees acquiring
278
formal qualifications. A further group of 134 respondents (31% of those offering a reason
for their firm’s non-participation) variously considered their organisation to be too small to
participate in MAs, to lack the infrastructure or resources to support MA training or that MAs
279
were otherwise unsuitable or irrelevant.
275
Modern Apprenticeships are available in occupations and sectors as diverse as accountancy, floristry
and procurement. They are not confined to manufacturing or labour-intensive professions. The
respondents who gave as their reason for not using MAs the fact that their organisations were not
involved in manufacturing or didn’t require physical skills do not possess a comprehensive
understanding of the programme. As much as anything, this result illustrates the need for better
information about the scheme to be made available to employers.
276
This is another slightly surprising result and, interestingly, two of the four directors citing this
reason were from organisations employing 201 or more employees. Apprentices should be paid a
salary that reflects their skills, experience, age, abilities and the going rate for the job. However, a
DfES report, based on a small number of detailed case studies, found apprentices’ wages in
engineering MAs to range between the minimum wage and £7,200 in the first year of training. Wages
increased over the period of the apprenticeship and the average rate by the end of the MA was just
over £12,000. See T. Hogarth & C. Hasluck, Net Costs of Modern Apprenticeship Training to Employers, p.
13. However, it has also been suggested that apprentices in this country are better paid than their
counterparts in Germany. Thus, while many Modern Apprentices are paid, on average over their
apprenticeship, a rate around half that of the fully-qualified employee in that sector, apprentices in
Germany normally receive approximately one third the wage of a skilled worker in the relevant sector.
See H. Steedman, H. Gospel & P. Ryan, Apprenticeship: A Strategy for Growth, p. 33.
277
Whilst only one director bemoaned the lack of Government financial support when responding to
this question, 6% (8) of those able to identify particular barriers to MA recruitment cited the
inadequacy of Government funding, incentives or tax breaks as a problem. See Table 8c.
278
As Table 8a shows, of the 428 respondents to the question, 29% (122) responded ‘Organisation
tends to recruit ready-qualified staff’; 19% (79) responded ‘Organisation’s training needs met in a
different way’; 6% (25) responded ‘We employ older/mature/experienced people’; and 3% (14)
responded ‘Organisation provides training that does not result in employees acquiring formal
qualifications’.
279
As Table 8a shows, of the 428 respondents to the question, 12% (50) responded ‘Organisation too
small to participate in Modern Apprenticeships’; 12% (51) responded ‘Not applicable/not relevant/we
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A significant proportion of respondents to our survey was, therefore, not using MAs because
the system did not suit their organisation or because their organisation had alternative
methods of recruiting and training its employees. Some respondents were simply not
recruiting. It would be challenging for the Government significantly to increase MA usage
among this group. The scope for expansion is potentially richer among the 14% (59) of
directors whose businesses were not covered by an MA framework, and among the 7% (28)
280
who were not aware of the existence of MAs at all. Additionally, some directors responding
to this survey identified factors such as cost, regulation and the overall quality of the
programme as playing a key role in their organisations’ decision not to use MAs. These are
also areas that the Government can address.
Size, sectoral and regional differences
The smallest organisations participating in our survey were slightly more likely to explain
that they didn’t use MAs because they tended to recruit ready-qualified staff. A third (33%
(56)) of respondents from firms employing 1-20 employees offered this explanation,
compared to just under a quarter (24% (21)) of respondents representing organisations with
281
201 or more staff. In a reversal of this pattern, larger organisations were more likely than
their smaller counterparts to meet their training needs in a different way. 28% (24) of
respondents from companies employing 201 or more staff cited this as a reason for not using
MAs, compared to 13% (23) of directors from organisations employing 1-20 employees.
Unsurprisingly, those firms with 1-20 employees were more likely (22% (38)) to feel that
their organisation was too small to participate in MAs than directors from companies with
more than 201 employees (1% (1)). Indeed, firm size did not seem to be a significant barrier
to those directors whose organisations employed between 21-100 (6% (8)) or 101-200 (6%
(3)) staff. Among those respondents who stated that the absence of an MA framework
covering their business prohibited involvement with the scheme, or that they simply did not
know about the MA programme, there was very little variation in the propensity to nominate
these explanations according to the number of employees employed.
Respondents based in the business and professional services sector were most likely (39%
(59)) to recruit ready-qualified staff, with directors representing organisations in the
manufacturing sector the least likely (15% (12)) to offer this as a reason for not using MAs.
Respondents involved in financial services were the most likely to state that their business
was not covered by an MA framework. A quarter of respondents from this sector, 25% (15),
don’t need apprentices in our industry’; and 8% (33) responded ‘Organisation lacks the infrastructure
and resources to support MA programmes’.
280
Although, clearly, it is impossible to judge whether or not these respondents would deem MA
training as a suitable proposition for their businesses even if they were covered by a framework or
were aware of the programme.
281
Department for Education and Employment research into the barriers hindering the use of MAs
conducted in 2000 concluded that the impediments were related more to the business culture of
SMEs and particular sectors than to their views of the value of the initiatives. SMEs, driven by shortterm business imperatives and operating within slim profit margins, tended to provide in-house
training for immediate requirements or recruit ready-qualified staff. Employers surveyed explained
that SMEs often did not have the capacity and infrastructure necessary to support MA training. See
Barriers to take-up of Modern Apprenticeships and National Traineeships by SMEs and specific sectors.
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were not covered, compared to just 7% (3) of directors involved in distribution. Respondents
to our survey who were based in the sector incorporating construction, mining and transport
were the most likely group to claim that their organisation lacked the infrastructure to
support MA training. Just under a fifth (18% (7)) of directors from this industrial sector did
not use MAs for this reason, in comparison to 5% (11) of respondents involved in business,
professional or financial services, and just 3% (1) of directors based in the sector covering
Government, education, health and personal services.
Directors based in the South of the country (33% (84)) were more prone to recruit readyqualified staff than directors based in the Midlands (25% (20)) or directors whose
organisations were located in the North (19% (18)). The latter group was most likely to
explain their non-participation in MAs by the fact that their training needs were met in a
different way. Over a quarter (27% (24)) of organisations based in the North did not use MAs
for this reason, in comparison to 17% (43) of organisations situated in the South and 14% (11)
of organisations sited in the Midlands.
8.2 Particular barriers obstructing the recruitment
of Modern Apprentices
In order to explore directors’ reasons for not using MAs in more detail, respondents not
involved in the scheme were asked whether they considered there to be particular barriers to
recruiting Modern Apprentices. Approximately a third, 31% (134), felt that there were. See
Table 8b below.
Table 8b:
In your opinion, are there any particular barriers to recruiting Modern
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Apprentices?
Percentage of respondents
31% (134)
39% (168)
29% (126)
Yes
No
Don’t know
Size, sectoral and regional differences
The propensity to identify particular barriers to MA recruitment did not vary significantly
according to firm size: 35% (60) of those organisations employing 1-20 employees reported a
specific obstacle, as did 29% (25) of those organisations with in excess of 201 employees.
Again, there was little variance according to industrial sector, although respondents involved
in financial services (21% (12)) were slightly less likely to single out a particular impediment
to MA recruitment than respondents from other industrial sectors. Proportionally, directors
of organisations based in the Midlands (42% (35)) were more liable to identify obstacles than
their counterparts in organisations located in the North (32% (29)) or South (28% (70)) of the
United Kingdom.
282
There were 428 respondents to this question.
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For those able to identify a particular barrier to the recruitment of Modern Apprentices,
finding appropriate candidates emerged as the principal problem. Worryingly, locating
suitable school leavers who were literate and numerate was cited as a difficulty by almost a
fifth, 19% (25), of these directors, whilst finding reliable and disciplined individuals was
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thought problematic by a further 10% (13). See Table 8c.
Table 8c:
What barriers do you think exist?284
Barrier
Finding suitable school leavers with the basic skills/literate and
numerate
Cost
Low pay/people expect more
Apprenticeship has a poor image/is seen as third class
Finding reliable/disciplined/motivated people
Engineering is unpopular/people don’t want ‘dirty’ jobs
Lack of information/awareness of the scheme and what’s on offer
We only employ skilled/experienced/income earning people
Not appropriate for us/no role for them
The bureaucracy/administration/legislation surrounding the
scheme
Hard to provide the necessary structure and stability for
training/have to be flexible
Lack of Government funding/incentives/tax breaks
Retention/afraid they will leave when trained
Managers don’t have the time to spare for supervision/mentoring
of trainees
Shortage of suitable applicants/people with the right skills
Quality of some of the courses/doesn’t produce the right skills
Lack of available courses/local college doesn’t support it/too far
away
Government pushing young people to go to university
People’s attitudes/staff/management/union’s attitudes
Other
283
Percentage of respondents
19% (25)
15% (20)
11% (14)
11% (14)
10% (13)
8% (10)
7% (10)
7% (10)
7% (9)
7% (9)
6% (8)
6% (8)
5% (7)
5% (7)
4% (6)
4% (5)
4% (5)
3% (4)
3% (4)
9% (12)
Evidence of the basic skills deficiencies afflicting adults in England was detailed by the Moser
Report, with one in five deemed functionally illiterate and an even higher proportion functionally
innumerate. See Improving Literacy and Numeracy – a fresh start. Report of the Working Group chaired by
Sir Claus Moser (Department for Education and Employment, 1999, Ref CMBS1), cited in Delivering
Skills for All: Second Report of the National Skills Task Force, p. 61. Additionally, recent analysis
conducted by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority at the behest of The Times illustrated that,
in 2002, just 66.2% of primary school children passed both English and mathematics at Level Four,
the expected standard for 11 year olds. See ‘Test results mask failure in maths and English skills’ (The
Times, 7 July 2003). In the same year, more than 300,000 teenagers (61%) failed to reach at least a
grade C in the ‘core’ subjects English, mathematics and science. Only 39% passed all three subjects
with good grades, despite 11 years of compulsory study (see ‘GCSE pass rate hides failure at most
important subjects’ (The Times, 13 January 2003). See also National Curriculum Assessments for Key Stage
3 (revised), GCSE/GNVQ examination results (provisional) and associated value added measures for young
people in England, 2001/02 (Department for Education and Skills Statistical First Release, 22 January
2003), Table 7).
284
There were 134 respondents to this question. Respondents could give more than one answer.
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12 respondents provided ‘Other’ comments, with some taking the opportunity to provide
more details of the specific barriers that they perceived. One director commented that there
was a “lack of local interest”, that “there is too much administration to do”, and that “the
whole system is a failure”. Other respondents echoed some of these sentiments. One
considered that “Government bureaucracy is strangling it [MAs] at birth” and that multiple
problems of perception existed – not only among employers but also among the public and
those considering MA training to start their career. Another felt similarly that school careers
tutors were failing to make young people believe that the MA scheme was a “good thing to
do”.
Other respondents perceived deeper problems. One did not feel that MAs replicated the
quality of the traditional apprenticeship. Another director thought that MAs needed to
become a “firm-driven idea” as they were currently seen as Government-imposed and
“funding-driven”. This supply-led approach consequently meant that MAs were “not seen
as a crucial technical training tool”. There were also complaints about “a lack of integration
between college…and workplace learning” and that there were inadequacies in some
employers’ knowledge of how to develop Modern Apprentices.
Size, sectoral and regional differences
Respondents from the manufacturing sector and from the business and professional services
sector were slightly more likely than respondents from other sectors to perceive a difficulty
in finding suitable school leavers equipped with basic skills. 26% (7) of the former and 24%
(12) of the latter considered literacy and numeracy deficiencies in prospective apprentices to
be a specific barrier to recruitment, compared with 8% (1) of respondents from the sector
incorporating construction, mining and transport. These respondents, on the other hand,
were most likely to describe cost as a barrier, with a quarter (25% (4)) identifying this as a
particular impediment. Proportionally, basic skills deficiencies and cost were barriers most
often detected by respondents from the Midlands, with a quarter (25% (9)) of directors
based in this region identifying each of these obstacles.
8.3 Particular barriers to Modern Apprenticeship
recruitment: further analysis
Table 8a clearly demonstrated that the principal reason for respondents not using MAs was a
perceived lack of relevance to their firms’ situation, capability and needs, both in terms of
recruitment and of training. Such situational barriers are again prominent in Table 8c
285
above. However, this Table also teases out additional barriers that can be grouped into four
principal obstacles or concerns: quality; cost; image; and delivery.
285
Namely, those respondents explaining: ‘We only employ skilled/experienced/income earning
people’ (7%); ‘Not appropriate for us/no role for them’ (7%); ‘Hard to provide the necessary structure
and stability for training/have to be flexible’ (6%); and ‘Managers don’t have the time to spare for
supervision/mentoring of employees’ (5%).
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Quality
The first, and largest, of these additional groupings incorporates concerns about applicants’
and MAs’ quality. 10% (13) considered the location of reliable, motivated or disciplined
individuals through the programme to be an obstacle, with 4% (5) feeling that the quality of
courses was questionable. Most worryingly, 19% (25) felt that finding suitable school leavers
286
with the basic skills was a particular barrier to MA recruitment. To combat these concerns
about weaknesses in apprentices’ literacy and numeracy, the Government should impose a
minimum entry requirement of GCSEs at A* to C in mathematics and English for all FMA
and AMA frameworks. Employers should be able to expect this level of ability at the very
least in potential apprentices. Ensuring a basic level of competence in these key areas may
also help to reduce the high dropout rates that plague some sectors.
Cost
Cost was also an issue for a large proportion of those able to identify particular obstacles to
MA recruitment. 15% (20) cited cost as a barrier, and a further 6% (8) believed that
insufficient Government support acted as a disincentive to recruiting Modern Apprentices.
Whilst previous Government studies have shown that funding provided through MAs
287
increases the supply of training places , dead weight would always be a concern. Indeed,
given the quality concerns highlighted both by directors participating in our survey and in
the evidence cited in section 4.2, it may not be desirable to increase the public funding
available for MAs in preference to other vocational qualifications. Nevertheless, costs, while
differing according to industry and between FMAs and AMAs, can be significant. A recent
indicative study by the DfES revealed the gross cost to an employer of a three and a half
year AMA in engineering to be £46,150, with a net cost of £14,715 once funding and
288
estimates of apprentices’ productive contribution had been taken into account.
Image
Nearly a fifth (18% (24)) of those identifying a particular barrier to participation in MA
training felt that apprenticeship had a poor image. 11% (14) stated that it was seen as “third
class” and 8% (10) that adverse perceptions made it difficult to attract young people,
especially to apprenticeships in engineering. Image, of course, is tightly bound to
assessments on quality. There has been glib talk of ‘establishing’ parity of esteem between
academic and vocational qualifications but the reality is that unless the latter are robust and
facilitate progression to further learning, employment and higher pay, they will continue to
286
Concern about apprentices’ basic skills is not limited to IoD members. A recent survey for the
DfES revealed that employers expressed concern about the difficulties recruiting individuals with
adequate levels of literacy in 10% of all FMAs and 8% of all AMAs. Employers also encountered
difficulties recruiting individuals with adequate levels of numeracy in 9% of all FMAs and AMAs. See
T. Anderson & H. Metcalf, Modern Apprenticeship Employers: Evaluation Study, p. 32.
287
C. Hasluck, T. Hogarth, M. Maguire & J. Pitcher, Modern Apprenticeships: A Survey of Employers
(Department for Education and Employment Research Series, 1997), cited in T. Hogarth & C.
Hasluck, Net Costs of Modern Apprenticeship Training to Employers, p. 1.
288
T. Hogarth & C. Hasluck, Net Costs of Modern Apprenticeship Training to Employers, p. viii and p. 13.
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struggle to win young people’s and employers’ respect. Indeed, the evidence indicates that
notions of parity of esteem between A levels and equivalent vocational qualifications hold
289
little sway among students and staff. Vocational routes remain a second best option for
many: whilst almost two-thirds of those opting to stay in full-time education or training post16 express a preference for an academic rather than a vocational programme, the eventual
290
participation rate in A level courses is less than 40% of the age cohort.
In due course, raising standards of provision and ensuring that apprentices are adequately
skilled will help to improve the image of apprenticeship. Ultimately, though, the wage
premium afforded by vocational qualifications is significantly inferior to that endowed by
291
292
academic qualifications. Young people, their teachers and their parents know this. As a
consequence it is clear that vocational courses are often perceived as low status, low return
options. Whilst there is evidence to suggest that MAs have, to some extent, overcome the
negative image associated with previous Government-sponsored youth training schemes,
293
work-based training remains a ‘second tier’ choice. In these circumstances, it is perhaps
not surprising that Modern Apprenticeships were seen by some respondents to have an
image problem.
289
See, for example, G. Helsby, P. Knight & M. Saunders, ‘Preparing students for the new work order:
the case of Advanced General National Vocational Qualifications’ (British Educational Research Journal,
24 (1), 1998), p. 69, cited in J. Payne, Choice at the end of compulsory schooling: A research review, p. 55.
290
N. Foskett & J. Hemsley-Brown, Choosing Futures: Young People’s Decision-making in Education,
Training and Career Markets (London: RoutledgeFalmer, 2001), cited in J. Payne, Choice at the end of
compulsory schooling: A research review, p. 55.
291
See Developing a National Skills Strategy and Delivery Plan: Underlying Evidence (Department for
Education and Skills, 2003), pp. 6-8. The document states, “The wage premium for academic
qualifications is consistently higher than vocational qualifications of the same level, with the greatest
difference at levels 1 and 2. And on the vocational side, qualifications with the strictest vocational
focus (NVQs) have the poorest wage premium (in comparison to City & Guilds or ONCs/ONDs)” (p.
6). It also reveals that while O levels/higher GCSEs (level 2) confer a 21% wage premium for men and
a 19% wage premium for women, Level 1/2 NVQs did not bestow a statistically significant wage
premium at all (p. 6). Chart 3 (p. 8) demonstrates that those individuals with five or more GCSEs
(level 2) amassed higher gross weekly earnings than those individuals with a level 3 vocational
qualification.
292
See R. Legard, K. Woodfield & C. White, Staying Away or Staying On? A Qualitative Evaluation of the
Educational Maintenance Allowance (Department for Education and Employment Research Report
RR256, 2001). The authors concluded that, “The prevailing view among young people, teachers and
parents was that A levels were the best qualifications to obtain in order to compete for a well-paid,
interesting job or to continue into higher education” (p. 17). Cited in J. Payne, Choice at the end of
compulsory schooling: A research review, p. 55.
293
Foskett and Hemsley-Brown observed that, “Those who expressed a wish to take an employment
with training route were usually those with the lowest qualification aspirations, or were choosing MAs
as a result of a negative decision (i.e. not to stay at school) and a decision to earn money while
training”. Explanations for not using MAs given by those Year 11 students surveyed included that fact
that vocational qualifications had little market value, that the vocational route was too narrow and that
vocational qualifications could be obtained more quickly at a further education college. See N.
Foskett & J. Hemsley-Brown, Choosing Futures: Young People’s Decision-making in Education, Training
and Career Markets (London: RoutledgeFalmer, 2001), cited in J. Payne, Choice at the end of compulsory
schooling: A research review, p. 57.
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Delivery
The final grouping of specific obstacles identified by respondents is characterised by
problems relating to the delivery of the MA programme. Clearly, whilst the Government’s
misplaced participation target could be met by encouraging involved employers to take on
more apprentices, it could also be aided by convincing more businesses to take part.
However, some respondents to our survey stated that the case for using MAs was
undermined by the associated bureaucracy (7% (9)) and a lack of available courses (4% (5)).
Additionally, 7% (10) of those respondents identifying particular barriers obstructing
participation in MAs felt that a lack of information was a particular problem and, as revealed
in Table 8a, 28 directors simply had not heard of MAs. It must be noted, though, that the
Department for Education and Skills and the Learning and Skills Council already devote
considerable energies to the promotion of MAs. In addition to the information available on
294
the dedicated Modern Apprenticeships website , the Department also ran a national
295
advertising campaign for MAs in the autumn of 2002.
8.4 Respondents’ suggested changes to Modern
Apprenticeships
A perceived lack of relevance to organisations’ needs again emerged as a key concern when
those directors not using MAs were asked to identify possible changes to the programme
that might persuade their firm to take part. 6% (27) of respondents stated that MAs needed
to be more relevant to their business or better geared towards their sector. Changes in this
area, perhaps in terms of altering the content of individual frameworks, might help to
stimulate greater employer involvement. However, almost a fifth (18% (77)) of those asked
to nominate potential improvements stated that the system’s lack of applicability to their
business was such that changes were simply unnecessary. The implementation of alterations
would not, in all probability, impact upon these organisations’ propensity to use MAs.
Similarly, a further 6% (27) indicated that changes would be unwarranted and that the
system was satisfactory in its present form. Again, these organisations’ involvement in MAs
is not being limited by any clearly identifiable (and remediable) faults. Rather, they do not
regard the scheme as suitable for their situation, pertinent to their needs or compatible with
their training resources, structures and practices.
294
See www.realworkrealpay.info.
According to the Strategic Marketing Directorate of the Learning and Skills Council, the total
budget for the 2002/03 MA campaign came to just over £5 million. This figure includes some
expenditure on temporary administrative support and strategy development as well as advertising.
Funds have consistently been made available in recent years to publicise Modern Apprenticeships. In
a Parliamentary Written Answer on 9 January 2003, Stephen Twigg MP provided details of the DfES’
expenditure on advertising and publicity since 1997. A table listing the campaigns over £500,000
revealed that approximately £6.7 million had been spent promoting National Traineeships and
Modern Apprenticeships over the period 1997-98 to 2001-02. See House of Commons Official Report.
Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) (Volume 397, No. 27, 9 January 2003, cols. 337W-338W, London: The
Stationery Office). In November 2001, the Government announced a £16 million MA marketing
campaign over three years (‘Morris, Brown and Hewitt announce new plans for Modern
Apprenticeships’ (Department for Education and Skills Press Notice 2001/0400, 29 November 2001)).
295
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Amongst the rest of the respondents, 9% (39) felt that greater financial assistance, including
subsidies from the Government, would help to convince their organisations to offer MAs. 7%
(32) of directors did not feel well informed about the scheme and that more information
would have a positive influence on MA take-up. In a similar vein, 2% (8) thought that MAs
required better marketing, promotion and awareness raising. Pleas to reduce the complexity
of the programme and the bureaucracy surrounding it were voiced by 3% (14) of
respondents, and the same proportion (3% (12)) were of the belief that the quality of
apprentices would have to improve before their organisation could be persuaded to take
part. Finally, a handful of directors, 1% (3), reported that their organisations were currently
reviewing their needs and examining the prospect of using MAs. See Table 8d below.
Table 8d:
What changes would need to take place to Modern Apprenticeship
296
programmes to persuade your organisation to take part?
Suggested change
No need to make changes – MAs not relevant/applicable to our
business
More subsidies/financial assistance needed (including better
Government funding support)
More information/communication needed; don’t know enough
about the scheme
It needs to be relevant to our business/geared towards our sector
None/no changes needed – system fine as it is
Changes needed to Government policies; needs to be less
regulation and bureaucracy/simplify things
Quality and calibre of apprentices needs to improve/apprentices
should have the basic skills
We’re too small a company/not established enough
Better marketing/awareness/promotion needed
Apprentices need to be committed; a contract should specify a
fixed term for the apprentice to stay with employer
MAs should be integrated into the school system and receive
more support from schools
Higher academic qualifications/education should be improved
Pay/wages would have to be negotiated; apprentices should be
297
paid the ‘going rate’
Applicants need to be filtered to ensure it’s the right scheme for
them
Looking into it/reviewing our needs/will be taking part
Others
Don’t know
Percentage of respondents not
using MAs
18% (77)
9% (39)
7% (32)
6% (27)
6% (27)
3% (14)
3% (12)
2% (11)
2% (8)
2% (8)
1% (6)
1% (5)
1% (4)
1% (3)
1% (3)
7% (31)
37% (157)
31 respondents suggested other changes that might influence them to use MAs. Some felt
the need to be convinced both that participation in MAs would result in a return on their
296
There were 428 respondents to this question. Respondents were permitted to volunteer as many
changes as applicable.
297
Employers taking on Modern Apprentices are only expected to pay the ‘going rate’ – in some cases
apprentices appear only to receive the rate of the national minimum wage. See, for example, T.
Hogarth & C. Hasluck, Net Costs of Modern Apprenticeship Training to Employers, p. 13.
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investment and that MAs imparted a sufficiently broad business experience. The lack of
staff available to conduct the on-the-job training element of the MA was a problem shared
by several respondents, but this is not a situation that the Government can reasonably be
expected to ameliorate. One director, though, thought that facilitating the establishment of a
“consortium of small employers in a similar industry who shared an apprentice or a group of
298
apprentices” might enable smaller firms to take part. Another thought that the
Government could offer administrative, rather than financial, support to businesses.
Size, sectoral and regional differences
It is difficult to discern clear patterns in the variations in respondents’ answers according to
the size of their organisations. For example, whilst 22% (39) of those firms employing 1-20
employees felt that changes to MAs would be unnecessary given the programme’s lack of
relevance to their business, so did 18% (16) of those organisations with in excess of 201 staff.
The provision of more information was a solution proposed by a number of respondents, but
seemed to be particularly popular among those employing between 101 and 200 employees.
23% (10) of this group proposed that more information be provided, compared to 4% (3) of
those employing more than 201 staff, 5% (6) of those employing 21-100 and 7% (12) of those
with 1-20 employees.
Directors from organisations involved in business, professional or financial services were the
group most likely to consider that there was no need to change MAs as they simply were not
relevant or applicable to their organisation. Over a fifth (23% (49)) of respondents involved
in providing these services took this view, compared to just 8% (4) of respondents involved
in the distribution industry.
8.5 Non-participation: implications and conclusions
The Government wishes to see 28% of young people enter MAs by 2004. The IoD does not
support this target. Nevertheless, the results presented in Tables 8a, 8c and 8d have certain
implications for the way in which the Learning and Skills Council might approach its aim of
raising the number of employers involved in MAs. The Tables illustrate that a significant
proportion of respondents to our survey felt that MAs lacked relevance to their organisation’s
299
needs and situation. Indeed, 18% of those not using MAs considered that this lack of
relevance was such that even changes to the programme would be unnecessary – the scheme
was simply not applicable to their business. In truth, there may be little that the
298
This is very much the support structure provided by Group Training Associations. For more
information, see section 3.2.
299
See also M. Hughes, V. Keddie, P. Webb & M. Corney, Working towards skills: Perspectives on
workforce development in SMEs (Learning and Skills Development Agency, 2002). This paper, based on
a survey of 85 organisations employing 2-50 employees, found that: “Attitudes to Modern
Apprenticeships were not always negative, even among non-users. Several of the employers were
favourably disposed, but did not believe that their business could support an apprenticeship at the
current time. Among those who did not employ Modern Apprentices, several felt that they could not
cover the requirements of the NVQ, or that the framework was not sufficiently relevant to their
business” (p. 24).
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Government can do to raise participation in MA training among those employers who have
different training requirements, different training practices or who do not otherwise see
apprenticeship training as a suitable or sustainable activity for their organisation.
A notable minority of employers participating in our survey had been deterred by the cost of
MAs. The expense of this form of training, and the perceived lack of Government funding,
were frequently cited by those able to identify specific barriers to MA recruitment.
Approximately a tenth of those not using MAs suggested that greater financial assistance
would spur their organisations to take part. However, the IoD does not consider that more
generous financial inducements should be offered from the public purse for this purpose.
Rather than provide further preferential subsidisation of MAs over other forms of vocational
training, the best agenda for the Government and the Learning and Skills Council to focus
upon is the improvement of quality, which is too variable in the MA programme. The
standard of training provision is patchy and certainly the evidence of this survey
demonstrates that recruits to MA programmes often lack rudimentary skills.
The Government should make it a top priority to improve quality where there is evidence of
poor provision and should continue to strive to improve standards in secondary education to
ensure that all young people have the basic skills. Efforts to generate greater employer
respect for the programme will founder if businesses cannot fill MA places due to
candidates’ lack of even the most fundamental skills. All potential Modern Apprentices must
be literate and numerate and should have gained at least a grade C in GCSE English and
mathematics. Enhancing the rigour of apprenticeships will, in turn, have a beneficial impact
on their image and reputation. Finally, aspects of the delivery of MAs could clearly be
tightened up. Respondents still perceived the bureaucracy surrounding the scheme to be a
problem, while others lacked information about the frameworks available or stated that the
local education infrastructure was not adequate to support MA training. Consolidation and
improvement, rather than expansion, would, at this stage, be better guiding principles for
the Government’s approach towards Modern Apprenticeship.
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9
Conclusion and suggested
reforms
The IoD has consistently argued the case for a high quality post-compulsory pathway for
vocational education and training. Indeed, the failure to develop an adequate system of
vocational instruction has been one of the long-standing weaknesses of the British
300
economy. The Modern Apprenticeship, the “flagship programme of work-based learning
301
for young people” , has a key role to play in the development of a coherent vocational route
302
and in addressing the country’s comparative weakness in intermediate skills. However,
whilst there is some excellent provision, the programme currently suffers from low
completion rates, variable quality and some flaws in both design and delivery. The
Government has set a target for 28% of young people to participate in MAs by 2004. In view
of the deficiencies highlighted by the ALI and others, the particular emphasis on boosting
participation is misplaced; rather, the Government’s attention should be more firmly fixed
on improving quality, stiffening demand and enhancing flexibility. We suggest additional
action and focus in the following areas:
Participation
If well used, a limited number of targets may act as a mechanism for improving performance
303
by focusing attention on key priorities. Equally, as the head of the Prime Minister’s
Delivery Unit, Professor Michael Barber, has acknowledged, targets can work against good
304
performance if public bodies focus on them “to the detriment of all other activities”.
Indeed, if not well chosen, the imposition of targets can distort behaviour, have unintended
305
effects and create perverse incentives. In the educational context, one such effect is the
placement of young people on inappropriate programmes, which is not helpful for
employers, does nothing to improve the quality of the vocational pathway and is ultimately
300
See, for example, R. Wilson, Vocational Qualifications and Training, p. 5; R. Wilson, Modern
Apprenticeships, p. 1; and R. Wilson, The Government’s plans for the 14-19 phase of education: an assessment
(IoD Policy Paper, May 2003), p. 12. See also R. Lea, Education and training: A business blueprint for
reform (IoD Policy Paper, June 2002).
301
Annual Report of the Chief Inspector 2001-02, p. 11.
302
It should be noted, though, that falling numbers on AMAs (training to Level 3) might hamper the
MA’s impact upon the level of intermediate skills and qualifications.
303
Memorandum by the Institute of Directors to the House of Commons Public Administration Select
Committee, December 2002.
304
‘Government warned on performance targets’ (The Financial Times, 14 July 2003).
305
See R. Wilson, The Government’s plans for the 14-19 phase of education: an assessment, p. 26.
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306
damaging for the young people themselves. The IoD believes that the current
307
proliferation of targets must be drastically reduced and that the Public Service Agreement
that 28% of young people participate in MAs by 2004 be dropped – this only serves to
aggravate the supply-led orientation of the Modern Apprenticeship scheme. Instead, the
expansion of MAs should be demand driven, that is to say driven by employers and learners,
not by the Government.308 The desire to increase participation rates in MAs should be
entirely secondary to the correction of the deficiencies that have been highlighted – these
should be addressed as a matter of urgency.
Standards
More stringent efforts should be made to improve standards. It would be highly regrettable
were the term ‘apprenticeship’ to become “simply a synonym for publicly-funded workbased learning, to the detriment of its historically hard-won reputation for skill and
309
quality”. Although its 2000 annual report proclaimed the then Department for Education
and Employment’s commitment “to raising levels of attainment of those on Advanced
310
Modern Apprenticeships” , completion rates for these and Foundation Modern
Apprenticeships remain far too low. As stated elsewhere in this paper, the keystone of the
Government’s work-based vocational education and training policy must deliver a better
than 25% probability that participants will complete all of its constituent parts.
It is essential that all components of MA frameworks are educationally rigorous and
demanding. Not only is this desirable in its own right, it should also serve to encourage the
311
more able to participate in vocational learning. As a first step, the LSC should insist that
Technical Certificates be incorporated into all FMA frameworks, in addition to the present
312
requirement within AMAs. Secondly, the abilities of those entering apprenticeships needs
to be addressed and the Government should introduce a minimum entry requirement of
GCSEs at A* to C in English and mathematics for all FMA and AMA frameworks.
Currently, it is evident that some young people in work-based learning are ill equipped
306
A Training Standards Council report on Modern Apprenticeships commented: “In the early stages
of the development of modern apprenticeships (and with the announcement of their expansion in
1997), TECs offered substantial signing-on fees to training providers and companies to help them
meet the targets for growth set by the DfEE…In order to meet recruitment quotas, many unsuitable
candidates were taken on as modern apprentices during 1997. Many of these young people
subsequently dropped out of training, without completing the framework” (Modern Apprenticeships: A
Survey Report by the Training Standards Council, p. 7).
307
Memorandum by the Institute of Directors to the House of Commons Public Administration Select
Committee, December 2002.
308
The supply-driven delivery of the MA may have resulted in the participation in the programme of
too many young people unsuited to its demands, thereby contributing to the high drop out and low
completion rates.
309
P. Ryan & L. Unwin, ‘Apprenticeship in the British ‘training market’’.
310
Departmental Report. The Government’s Expenditure Plans for 2000-01 to 2001-02 (Department for
Education and Employment and Office for Standards in Education, Cm 4602, April 2000), p. 91.
311
The LSC has itself commented on the “growing recognition of the extent to which HE [higher
education] expansion has drawn 16-19 year olds away from vocational training, although this trend had
been evident well before the recent surge in HE participation”. See Key Messages from Skills in England
2002 (Learning and Skills Council, January 2003), p. 6.
312
See R. Wilson, Modern Apprenticeships, pp. 1-2.
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academically and attitudinally to pursue an apprenticeship without substantial additional
313
support. It is not unreasonable to insist on a minimum level of ability in both English and
mathematics in order to ensure that apprentices can cope with the level of training required
in an MA. Finally, the initial assessment of trainees’ learning needs must be carried out with
more rigour.314
Funding
The introduction by the LSC of the national funding rates for MAs in April 2001 was a
welcome improvement on the variability and uncertainty of the previous arrangements and
warmly supported by the IoD. The LSC could also advantageously use funding mechanisms
to drive up standards. Its funding guidelines for 2002/03 instructed that, “Local Councils are
unlikely to wish to increase the volume of WBL [work-based learning] provision where
concerns exist in relation to quality, for example where unsatisfactory inspection grades are
reported or where quality issues have been raised through the provider performance
review”.315 Rightly, there should be absolutely no question of seeking to increase the
number of apprentices, or any other type of learner, in environments that fail to provide high
quality training. However, the extent of inadequate provision revealed in inspections
conducted by the ALI and Ofsted warrants the adoption of a tougher approach towards
failing providers. The IoD fully supports the action taken by the LSC in terminating public
316
contracts in approximately 300 particularly weak training providers in 2002-03. The IoD
also welcomes the formation of the new Provider Development Unit (PDU) within the
317
ALI. It is right that providers be offered suitable support, guidance and, where applicable,
practical assistance to help them improve. However, the LSC’s prime concern must remain
313
See M. Hughes, Making the grade: a report on standards in work-based learning for young people, p. 6 &
p. 29.
314
This was one of the prominent areas of weakness among training providers highlighted in the ALI’s
annual report published in 2002. As its predecessor body commented, “An accurate assessment of
prior knowledge or skill, of aptitude and of basic and key skills at entry to the programme enables the
employer or training provider to design an individual training plan to provide the structure for
learning” (Modern Apprenticeships: A Survey Report by the Training Standards Council, p. 9).
315
Funding Arrangements for Work Based Learning for Young People in 2002/03 (Learning and Skills
Council, Circular 02/12, July 2002). The circular continued, “In particular, local Councils will wish to
consider very carefully any plans to increase sub-contracted activity where a current inspection report
gives an unsatisfactory grading in leadership and management. In addition, where occupational areas
have an unsatisfactory grading the local Council is unlikely to wish providers to increase the average
numbers in learning” (p. 15).
316
Annual Report and Accounts 2002-03 (Adult Learning Inspectorate, July 2003), p. 6. The approach
st
was underlined in the White Paper 21 Century Skills – Realising Our Potential: Individuals, Employers,
Nation, which stated that, “Public funds can only be allocated to providers which can offer high
quality, relevant programmes. We are currently putting a lot of effort and resource into building
higher and more consistent quality across the LSC-funded sector. That has entailed withdrawing
funds from many providers where quality was low or provision unviable” (p. 90).
317
The new service from the PDU involves experienced inspectors working alongside staff from the
local LSC to help unsatisfactory providers improve their provision. Inspectors are seconded full-time
to guarantee the separation of inspection from the offer of advice. The ALI developed the PDU in
2002-03 at the invitation of the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, p. 6 & p. 11).
77
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318
the interests of the learners themselves. All training providers that are the subject of a
critical inspection report must be required speedily to improve. If, a year after receiving a
critical inspection report, a training provider fails to demonstrate good progress towards the
319
correction of identified weaknesses during subsequent ALI monitoring , its contract with
the LSC to provide work-based learning should be terminated.
It is critical, given the worrying scale of poor provision, that the LSC does not shy away from
taking decisive sanctions against weak providers, because they fail the learners in their
tutelage and tarnish the reputation of the MA and other work-based programmes. The
national LSC should not only give explicit instructions to its local arms that they cease to
320
fund MA places with inadequate training providers. It is also incumbent on the LSC,
whose budget for 2003-04 exceeds £8 billion, to ensure that the inspection process remains
321
transparent and reliable. It should not seek to influence the outcome of an ALI inspection
by ‘coaching’ providers or offer guidance that masks deficiencies or has the effect of
boosting short-term performance without addressing long-term weaknesses. This is of
paramount importance. The ALI performs a vital function in monitoring standards; it is
imperative that confidence in its ability to carry out this role is not undermined. It is also, in
parenthesis, the recipient of over £24 million of public money to enable it to discharge its
functions.322
318
As Avril Willis, Director of Quality and Standards at the LSC, put it in June 2002, “The LSC’s
overriding responsibility is to the learner” (‘Work-based learning for young people must improve:
Hodge’ (Department for Education and Skills Press Notice 2002/0120, 11 June 2002).
319
The ALI has adopted a new approach to the reinspection of unsatisfactory provision. Instead of a
single summary inspection within two years of the original, a number of “small-scale monitoring
visits” are made over the course of approximately a year. Early evidence suggests that this new
approach, alongside the services of the PDU, “both hastens and accentuates the extent of providers’
improvement”. Indeed, “the proportion of work-based providers declared inadequate declined
gradually during 2002-03 to 48 per cent average for the year and 39 per cent in the final quarter”. See
Annual Report and Accounts 2002-03, p. 6.
320
Although the particular focus of this paper is on Modern Apprenticeships, it is axiomatic that the
LSC also be resolute in addressing faults in those providers, whether further education colleges,
private training companies or single employers, who receive critical inspection reports in any area of
provision. The Chief Inspector of the ALI has commented: “…the faults found with the inadequate
colleges [in inspections reported in the first joint ALI and Ofsted annual report] were mostly longstanding: the Further Education Funding Council had identified them but nobody, governors or
funding body, had insisted they be put right”. See ‘The lost three million’ (Talisman, Issue 18, Adult
Learning Inspectorate, April 2003), p. 1. These colleges “should have been improved a long time ago”
(p. 1). In the 2001-02 academic year, 25% of the general further education, specialist and tertiary
colleges inspected were declared inadequate, as were: 26% of learndirect hubs in their first full year of
operation; 35% of Jobcentre Plus provision; and 27% of adult and community learning. Fewer than 5%
of sixth form colleges were declared inadequate. See the ALI’s Annual Report and Accounts 2002-03, p.
6.
321
The LSC’s budget is £8,095 million for 2003-04, rising to £8,618 million in 2004-05 and £9,200
million in 2005-05 (LSC Grant Letter 2003-04, available on the LSC website at
www.lsc.gov.uk/National/Documents/SubjectListing/CorporateandStrategic/Corporate/GrantRemitL
etters.htm).
322
Annual Report and Accounts 2002-03, p. 13.
78
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Flexibility
The evidence from our survey indicates that many employers simply do not see the MA
programme as appropriate or relevant to their business. It is quite likely that, for most, MAs
will remain unsuitable for their training and business needs or beyond the scope of their
organisation to support. Nevertheless, there is a good case for injecting some flexibility into
the MA to offer more employers high quality training options appropriate to their
circumstances. One potential reform might be the modification of the current ‘one-size-fitsall’ approach within MAs to permit the inclusion of other industry standard qualifications as
alternatives to the NVQ, where available and where appropriate. A supplementary question
in our survey, prompting respondents to describe the key components of a successful
training programme for 16-24 year olds, suggested that members were considerably less
323
enamoured with NVQs than with other recognised vocational qualifications. At the same
time, a more flexible approach should also cater for those employers who would appreciate
the ability to include additional NVQ units or whole NVQs from other occupational areas in
324
order to deliver more balanced and relevant training.
The IoD therefore considers that there is scope to improve the relevance of the MA to
employers, enabling them to tailor programmes more precisely to meet their needs.
However, it should be recognised that MAs and apprenticeship-style skill formation are not
necessarily suited to, or feasible for, all sectors or all businesses. The programme should not
be regarded or imposed as the default work-based programme for young people,
automatically promoted over other vocational qualifications or approaches to training. This
would be a disservice to both employers and young people. The former should not be
‘encouraged’ to adopt MAs when other training alternatives might be more suitable for their
circumstances, nor should the LSC necessarily attempt to convert existing, successful, high
325
quality, company training programmes into MA schemes. It is not at all certain that such
conversions would represent a sagacious use of public money. In turn, young people should
323
The results of this question are not reported in the main body of this paper because the original
unprompted approach resulted in a disparate list of components. In response, half way through
surveying, respondents were prompted instead to consider seven potential key components and then
permitted to select others. Of the 243 respondents to the prompted question, 49% (119) felt NVQs to
be a key component compared to 71% (173) who nominated other recognised vocational
qualifications. Other key components included: key skills qualifications (90% (219)); other key skills
units (85% (207)); technical skills (84% (204)); off-the-job training (75% (181)); and small
units/modules (74% (179)). 64% (155) of respondents volunteered other components.
324
See Modern Apprenticeships: A Survey Report by the Training Standards Council, p. 11.
325
MAs will not always be an improvement on previous training arrangements. A DfES report based
on the findings of a telephone of 1,500 employers using MAs found that, in 48% of cases, apprentices
would have been provided with similar training in the absence of the MA programme. Where the
introduction of MAs replaced other training, 40% of employers thought that MAs provided a higher
level of qualification, 32% that MAs developed a higher level of skills, and 36% felt that MAs
developed a wider range of skills. The majority of the remaining employers considered that MAs
equalled previous provision, with approximately one in ten regarding MAs as inferior when assessed
on these measures. When it came to comparing MAs’ flexibility compared to the previous training,
57% thought that MAs either made no difference or performed less well, and the same proportion
considered that MAs were either no more effective or were actually less effective in alleviating skill
shortages. 44% thought that MAs made no difference or were less effective in raising skill levels than
the previous training. See T. Anderson & H. Metcalf, Modern Apprenticeship Employers: Evaluation
Study, pp. 57-62.
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not be corralled into MAs to meet the Public Service Agreement participation target for
2004. Indeed there would appear to be merit in encouraging more young people to continue
vocational learning in full-time education, complementing their technical and occupational
326
learning with continued general education. In this context, we anticipate the further
327
development of initiatives such as Student Apprenticeships with interest.
Key skills
Whilst SSCs should remain free to specify key skills components where required, the
incorporation of key skills into apprenticeship frameworks has not always been successful
and the consequent difficulties have impacted on completion rates. It is right that all
apprentices on MA frameworks possess the basic skills of literacy and numeracy and
reasonable for employers to expect this level of competence after 11 years’ compulsory
328
schooling. However, the introduction of a new entry requirement that apprentices have
GCSEs at grades A* to C in English and mathematics would allow for the removal of key
skills qualifications in communication and application of number as mandatory elements of
all MAs. Such a move would permit apprentices to complete their MA more quickly by
freeing up time to concentrate on the remaining requirements. Alternatively, it could also
enable apprentices to study for an additional Technical Certificate, additional NVQ units, or
to study their NVQ or equivalent qualification to a higher level. Increasing the educational
and knowledge demand of MAs should not only reinforce the technical rigour of the
programmes but also put participants in a better position to progress to higher learning, if
desired.329
326
Fuller and Unwin have commented on the ‘occupational rootlessness’ of the Business
Administration framework: “The generic and somewhat ephemeral Business Administration
standards do not specify…concrete skills. Instead they offer a general and normative guide to the
broad areas in which someone following the standards should become competent”. This gives rise to
the question, in relation to this sector, of “whether apprenticeship in itself is an appropriate or
necessary method of skill formation”. Given the emphasis on general educational ability, Fuller and
Unwin argue that the relevant knowledge and ‘skill’ could be developed in conventional ways,
through participation in general and academic courses in education institutions supplemented by onthe-job experience. See A. Fuller & L. Unwin, ‘Creating a ‘Modern Apprenticeship’: a critique of the
UK’s multi-sector, social inclusion approach’ (Journal of Education and Work, 16:1, 2003).
327
Student Apprenticeships were described thus in the White Paper 14-19: opportunity and excellence
(Department for Education and Skills, 2003): “Student Apprenticeships offer further, flexible
progression opportunities, into a Modern Apprenticeship or higher education. Student
Apprenticeships are a collaborative approach to offering students in post-16 full-time education the
opportunity to gain valuable work experience and vocational learning alongside their qualifications”
(p. 29). Continuing general education should, as a corollary, place apprentices in more advantageous
position to progress to higher learning.
328
The IoD has remarked previously that the basic skills of literacy and numeracy should be tackled
in schools and not remedially in post-16 training. See R. Lea, Education and training: A business
blueprint for reform, p. 155.
329
In their second report, the National Skills Task Force commented: “We also believe that, if
Foundation and Modern Apprenticeships at Levels 2 and 3 are to be a positive choice for a wider
segment of young people, they must offer the opportunity for further progression in general education
as well as to higher levels of vocational education. In particular they must keep open the option of
going on to higher education for at least some Apprentices”. The Task Force also remarked, “We
know from research on drop outs from HND courses and degree programmes how important it is for
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Progression
To translate the well-intentioned rhetoric about a high quality, work-based educational
330
pathway, into a real, “coherent ladder of learning for vocational education” , MAs must
display greater rates of progression, both from FMAs to AMAs, and from AMAs to higher
learning. Evidently, a greater focus on completion rates and on improving the rigour of MA
programmes will play an important role in aiding participants’ progression along a workbased route. It would also be useful for the LSC to collect better data with which to monitor
progression, particularly with regard to entry into higher education. The current LSC data on
the destinations of AMA leavers cannot reliably be used to determine the proportion
entering higher education.331 Neither can the information collected by the University and
Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) shed light on the issue: MAs have never been coded as
a unique qualification type and are therefore included in a broad ‘Other Qualifications’
category.332 Finally, as the LSC does not collect data on the type and volume of Level 4
qualifications achieved by apprentices, it is not possible to say with any confidence how
many apprentices participate in other forms of higher learning.
Information
Better information about MAs should be provided to both employers and potential
333
apprentices. Even if aware of the programme, employers do not always possess detailed
knowledge of its content and may make decisions about the appropriateness of the scheme
for their business on the basis of an incomplete understanding. Students require a higher
334
level of initial guidance so that they know what the programme entails and what to expect.
Astoundingly, the Training Standards Council remarked in a 2000 report on MAs that,
335
“Many apprentices are unaware, even, that they are modern apprentices”. Disturbingly,
students to be able to write fluently and to be able to deal with higher level mathematical concepts
which go beyond basic numeracy”. See Delivering Skills for All: Second Report of the National Skills Task
Force, Recommendation 3(x), p. 43.
330
‘Blunkett announces major expansion and reform of vocational learning’ (Department for
Education and Employment Press Notice 2000/0065, 16 February 2000). See also the “ladder of
vocational progression” described in D. Blunkett, Education into Employability: The role of the DfEE in
the Economy, paragraph 49.
331
The destination of apprentices is tracked at the point of leaving and is not subsequently followed
up. Furthermore, as response rates to the LSC’s surveys are not generally high, the reliability of the
information collected is questionable.
332
Information provided by UCAS’ Data and Analytical Services, 21 July 2003.
333
The “lack of information for potential beneficiaries”, alongside “inconsistent delivery” and “poor
management”, was one of the principal problems identified by the Modern Apprenticeship Advisory
Committee. See Modern Apprenticeships: The Way to Work. The Report of the Modern Apprenticeship
Advisory Committee, p. 7. Market research commissioned by the Committee had revealed a demand for
“more information beyond general promotional literature and that described how employers could
become involved and the level of commitment they would have to make” (p. 52).
334
The DfES has presented evidence to suggest that intending school leavers would appreciate
greater information on the opportunities to combine work and training generally. See J. Payne, Choice
at the end of compulsory schooling: A research review, p. 58.
335
Modern Apprenticeships: A Survey Report by the Training Standards Council, p. 10. The same body
criticised the paucity of advice offered to young people at 15 or 16 in its 2001 annual report. See
Reaching New Standards: Annual Report of the Chief Inspector 2000-2001 (Training Standards Council,
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the DfES also recently concluded that, “There is some evidence that schools do not
particularly encourage young people to undertake work-based training” and were more
336
likely to try to persuade 16 year olds to stay on in their own sixth forms. The Connexions
Service should ensure that all careers teachers are knowledgeable about work-based training
so that they are well placed to guide young people through all of the options open to them
337
post-16. It is also important that Connexions itself remains focused on the needs of all 13
to 19 year olds and not become distracted by Government targets on reducing the numbers
338
of those not in education, employment or training.
Delivery
Greater support and incentives should be given to those employers who, whether
individually or collectively, undertake to arrange apprenticeship training entirely
themselves. Whilst the approach is not suitable for all firms, particularly smaller
339
businesses , the evidence suggests that employer training providers are awarded better
340
inspection grades than other types of provider. Analysis of the ALI’s database, which
2001), p. 7. Training providers interviewed by the LSDA remarked that early leavers from work-based
training programmes were partly caused by the poor guidance given prior to candidates’ recruitment.
See M. Hughes, Making the grade: a report on standards in work-based learning for young people, p. 29 & p.
36. See also Modern Apprenticeships: Exploring the reasons for non-completion in five sectors (Department
for Education and Employment, Research Brief No. 217, August 2000): “Many young people are
starting their MAs without really understanding what the training will involve…almost half (45%) the
non-completers felt with hindsight that they did not know enough about the MA when they started
it” (p. 2).
336
J. Payne, Choice at the end of compulsory schooling: A research review, p. 57 and p. 58. Evidence cited by
this research report suggested that schools viewed those leaving for MAs as “drop outs” (p. 58). See
also L. Unwin & J. Wellington, Young People’s Perspectives on Education, Training and Employment:
Realizing their Potential, pp. 45-47 for apprentices’ tales of teachers and careers officers advising against
apprenticeships.
337
The Connexions Service expects its Personal Advisers to bring MAs to the attention of young
people as an option when they are deciding what progression ‘route’ to follow, although this
commitment appears to be characterised by a best practice approach rather than stemming from an
explicit legal obligation. Locally, Connexions Partnerships include their commitment to working with
the LSC and promoting MAs to young people as part of their business plans. Information provided
by the Operational Support Team from the Connexions Service National Unit, 18 July 2003.
338
Concerns have been expressed that Connexions’ resources have been diverted away from sixth
forms and further education colleges in order to meet a target that the number of those not in
education, training or employment be reduced by 10%. The head of a sixth form college in
Birmingham has commented, “This is another aspect…of target-setting getting in the way of common
sense. Although we are all concerned about the kids who drop out, to make them the focus distorts
the primary function of an independent agency to give impartial and sensible advice to all about the
minefield of educational provision. This is an example of unintended consequences – no one has
thought this through”. See ‘Are we failing our teenagers?’ (The Independent, 3 July 2003).
339
As the Cassels Report noted, “For smaller employers particularly, the services of agents are needed
to make the delivery of high quality apprenticeship programmes feasible” (Modern Apprenticeships: The
Way to Work. The Report of the Modern Apprenticeship Advisory Committee, p. 23).
340
Analysis of inspection grades in the LSDA’s report on standards in work-based learning showed
that employer training providers were awarded more of the better grades for leadership and
management. See M. Hughes, Making the grade: a report on standards in work-based learning for young
people, p. 21. Additionally, the Training Standards Council’s 2001 annual report concluded that,
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contains inspection data for those training providers in receipt of Government funding,
341
suggests that single employers, in particular, are the best performers. In engineering and
construction, multi-employer groups follow single employers in the performance rankings342
and, although multi-employer training tends to be less successful in new areas, collaboration
can offer real benefits, such as economies of scale and a reduction in the administrative costs
of training, particularly for small and medium-sized employers.343 It is well known that
smaller organisations “train least frequently and least intensively” and “are less likely to
344
provide off-the-job training or training that leads to a qualification”. Group Training
Associations and similar models may therefore assist to engage in training, including
apprenticeship provision, those organisations that would otherwise feel that they were too
345
small to participate. In short, fostering greater employer involvement in MAs, whether
through single or multi-employer provision, has the potential to increase the number of
businesses offering quality apprenticeship places and to ensure greater overall quality in
346
provision. In turn, this should deliver higher MA completion rates.
The adoption of these recommended proposals, accompanied by resolute concentration on
the areas of principal weakness, should help to improve completion rates, raise the quality of
training provision, enhance the relevance of MAs to employers, better reflect demand and
more firmly establish the scheme’s place in a vocational pathway. The MA system is the
centrepiece of the Government’s vocational programme and the vast majority of those IoD
“Employers training their own staff performed consistently better than other types of provider, with
over 60 per cent of their occupational areas awarded grades 1 and 2 and few unsatisfactory grades”
(Reaching New Standards: Annual Report of the Chief Inspector 2000-2001, p. 9).
341
See H. Gospel & J. Foreman, The Provision of Training in Britain: Case Studies in Inter-Firm
Coordination (Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics and Political Science,
Discussion Paper 555, December 2002), Table 3, p. 31. In analysis conducted by the authors on
figures extracted from the ALI database, single employer providers (accounting for 17% of all training
providers on the database, though only for 4.8% of trainees on FMAs, AMAs and Other Training),
scored better than average across the board. In engineering, for example, 75% of training was graded
as ‘good’ in single employer providers, compared to 44% in employer group training organisations
(including chambers of commerce, GTAs and other employer-led organisations), 33% in private
providers and 27% in further education colleges.
342
Ibid, p. 31.
343
Ibid, p. 25.
344
Key messages from Skills in England 2002, p. 25. The document continued, “Policy makers need to
develop a larger range of workforce development opportunities to offer employers, especially the
smaller organisations and establishments, options appropriate to their circumstances. The one-sizefits-all approach that has characterised many existing qualifications frameworks and the Modern
Apprenticeships may need to be changed to achieve this” (ibid, p. 25)
345
The Skills Strategy White Paper, for example, noted that the LSC was working with the Modern
Apprenticeship Task Force to encourage “employers to work together to expand the number of
st
learning places, for example through Group Training Associations”. See 21 Century Skills – Realising
Our Potential: Individuals, Employers, Nation, p. 80.
346
Gospel and Foreman suggest the following measures to strengthen multi-employer training: the
dissemination of best practice arrangements; targeted support with start-ups; the creation of equality
in financing arrangements, providing such bodies with funding more commensurate with that
received by colleges; funding the direct employment of apprentices by allowing a further grant for the
placement of trainees with employers; and encouraging firms to join multi-employer schemes via
incentive payments to those member employers whose trainees complete their full apprenticeship. H.
Gospel & J. Foreman, The Provision of Training in Britain: Case Studies in Inter-Firm Coordination, pp.
27-28.
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members using MAs were well disposed towards them, feeling that they equipped
employees with the skills needed to do their jobs and that their use had been beneficial to
the business. Completion rates in members’ schemes were creditably high and the vast
majority of Modern Apprentices were well supported and had access to off-the-job training
at external training providers. The IoD supports the MA and is keen for it to fulfil its
potential. However, the Government should not focus exclusively on the MA; there are valid
training alternatives and the programme should not become the default option for young
people interested in work-based learning. The system at large suffers from deficiencies in
quality that are simply unsustainable and continue to require concerted restorative action as
a matter of priority.
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