Jeremy Corbyn has announced that a Labour government would deliver 320,000 new ‘climate apprenticeships’ during its first term – part of a wider commitment to creating a million high skilled jobs in a Green Industrial Revolution.  There’s a  general recognition that a Green New Deal would be kick-started in the building and construction sector, energy … Continue reading Climate apprenticeships or new green jobs? →

While the total number of apprenticeships starts continues to level off, the rapid increase in  enrolments for Higher Level schemes appears to be bucking this trend.  According to latest government data, there were 60 000 new starts during the last nine months, well above the figure for the preceding twelve months, which at the time constituted … Continue reading Apprenticeships and Gavin Williamson →

You could be forgiven for not realising last week was ‘Apprenticeship Week’ - an annual event enabling the apprenticeship industry to promote good practice and celebrate the diversity of opportunities available, the government is also launching a £2 million advertising campaign through TV and social media.   Make no mistake there are some very good … Continue reading ‘Apprenticeship Week’ but not too much to celebrate? →

The latest official figures on quarterly apprenticeship starts (August to October 2017) may be disappointing reading for government, in view of David Cameron’s 2016 General Election promise to create an additional three million by  2020, but as posts on this site have emphasized, apprenticeships have never benefited many young people, never provided an alternative pathway to … Continue reading Apprenticeships: the demise continues →

It’s nine months since the introduction of an employer’s levy – designed to raise an additional £3 million for the apprenticeships programme and help government reach its total of 3 million more apprenticeship starts by 2020. But the apprenticeship levy only applies to large employers with a wage bill of more than £3 million (approximately … Continue reading Apprenticeship troubles continue →

Official figures show a 2.7% decline in apprenticeship starts  for the period August 2015-2106 compared to the previous year. It’s the fall in participation rates for those under 19 (7%) that is most significant. The number of 19-24-year-old starts have also fallen, while the number of adult starts is narrowly up. More specifically, the number of … Continue reading Apprenticeship starts down →

 ‘Our goal is for young people to see apprenticeships as a high quality and prestigious path to successful careers’        Foreword to English Apprenticeships: Our 2020 Vision   HM Government Dec 2015   Latest statistics for apprenticeship starts continue to provide a rather different picture to that pained by government ministers. It’s true that there have … Continue reading New apprenticeship figures, but a similar story →

Recent Department for Education statistics show that the number of apprenticeship applications far outstrip the number of apprenticeship vacancies. For example, between Aug 2015/16 there were a total of 1,656,680 applications for 211,380 vacancies a ratio of about 8 to 1 – about half of these were from 17-18 year olds. Three quarters of vacancies … Continue reading Apprenticeships : many more applications than vacancies →

Updated and revised. This 'final' version covers developments since the 2015 General Election - like the employer levy, The Post-16 Plan, the Institute of Apprenticeships, the further development of the Trailblazers.  Despite these  however, provisional figures for 2015/2016 continue show that apprenticeships continue to be mostly 'low skilled and dead end' and for most young … Continue reading Still a ‘Great Training Robbery’ →

 She might have ditched the Cameron government’s Acadamisation plans but Education Secretary Justine Greening is going ahead with its  Post-16 Skills Plan [i] - legalities were formalised in The Technical and Further Education Bill on Oct 27th. The Plan commits itself to create 15 distinct ‘pathfinder’ routes into employment each with a single ‘college based’ Tech … Continue reading Welcome to the Institute of Apprenticeships and Technical Education! →