I grew up in Birmingham where I attended Perry Beeches School. Back then, it was a rather run-down, dishevelled establishment, built on a marsh with a playing field unusable at times. I remember that the gym had a huge crack running through it where it had subsided into the soft ground and there were brambles growing in the boys toilets. As if that wasn’t bad enough, when I was 14 it burned down and we had lessons in portacabins. Nevertheless, the teachers were passionate and committed and I’ll always be grateful to them.

My upbringing is somewhat different from that of Euan Blair, son of former prime minister Tony, who was interviewed about apprenticeships for TES recently. Yet despite our very different journeys we have both ended up running apprenticeship providers upon the eve of some of the most exciting reforms in our sector’s history. In his interview, Mr Blair outlined a vision for apprenticeships and I would like to do the same.

When it comes to work-based learning, my upbringing has given me an egalitarian rather than elitist zeal for apprenticeships. I see them as a force for social mobility, offering entry routes into new and exciting careers for a wide range of young people. My 17 years of experience has provided me with the privilege of working with young people of all abilities. I have seen great achievements and great inequality in skills. I have met both the skills-haves and the skills-have-nots and the seen ways in which the latter struggle for opportunities.

‘Unduly pessimistic’

In his interview with TES, I couldn’t fault Euan Blair’s passion for our sector and I appreciate his focus on apprenticeships as a vehicle for young people. However, I don’t believe that the “day needs saving” as far as apprenticeships are concerned. Apprenticeships aren’t in any kind of trouble; they are enjoying a renaissance and the current reforms build upon some cherished and traditional principles that underpin what we understand an apprenticeship to be. My grandfather was an apprentice armature winder and his father an apprentice draftsman. Their apprenticeships opened to them a life of work, skills, and advancement in a similar way that university opened doors to their more academically gifted peers. Being academically gifted is an example of a “skills-have”. You have the skills to study, pass exams and enjoy the wide range of opportunities that come from university. Consequently graduates have been able to enjoy the best paid careers on offer.

But if academia isn’t your thing, then what? Apprenticeships offer the same ladder of opportunity for young people but in a different way to university. An apprenticeship can open doors to a career while at the same time stretching the knowledge, motor skills and personal development of the apprentice. It challenges the apprentice not only to achieve qualifications and develop behaviours but to do so at the same time as starting their first job (as if that wasn’t daunting itself). More than university, apprenticeships can take the skills-have-nots and transform their lives and prospects.

So, as I read his interview, I felt that Mr Blair painted a picture of apprenticeships which is unduly pessimistic.

“If [apprenticeships are] going to be taken seriously, they can’t just be seen as the option for kids who aren’t that academically bright, who were never going to go to university anyway,” Blair says. “We want a situation where smart kids, who could go to Oxbridge or Russell Group universities, have to make a difficult decision: ‘Do I go down that route, or do I join this incredible apprenticeship scheme at a top UK corporate or really exciting tech start-up?’”

In my humble opinion, apprenticeships are taken seriously. They are taken seriously by the employers who offer them, the mentors who guide them, the providers that deliver them, the parents that support them and most of all by the apprentices who achieve them. At our annual apprentice graduation I see just how seriously apprenticeships are taken and the esteem in which they are held. Some of our employers have delivered apprenticeships for over 30 years and in fact their directors are former apprentices. There is a great affection and respect for apprenticeships across all demographics and throughout industry. The brand is solid, understood and has real integrity among users. There are some bad providers, but show me a sector where that isn’t the case. With over a million starts in the last two years we should focus on building, not rebranding, apprenticeships.

‘The great leveller in the skills landscape’

I’d also suggest that apprenticeships are not only an option for “kids who aren’t that academically bright”, but may be their most effective route to a fulfilled career. An apprenticeship doesn’t require that you went to a good school, attended extra lessons or that you left with excellent grades. An apprenticeship requires passion, commitment and potential. It looks beyond who the young person is now and asks ‘what could you be’. It is a great leveller in the skills landscape and helps young people who aren’t academically strong to ‘compete’ for similar career opportunities to those who are. The problem is that the social divide between the richest and poorest (economically and in skills) is now so broad that we’re playing catch-up. Apprenticeships are perhaps the most efficacious tool that we have in helping young people to realise their potential. 

Consequently repositioning apprenticeships as a programme for those who ‘could go to university’ risks channelling resources towards the ‘skills-haves’ and away from those who need it most. I’d see this as a regressive step. A young person who went to the right school, has excellent grades and the pick of universities is already enjoying great advantage. Why would anyone wish to further entrench that advantage at the expense of those who go to a school where the gym is falling down and there are blackberries hanging over the urinals?

As I look upon the sector I’d say that apprenticeships don’t need saving. They may need improving but what public service doesn’t? To improve is to change, to perfect is to change often and while the current changes present new opportunities for everyone we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that apprenticeships can be a force for social good. These are not transactional programmes but transformative opportunities that can challenge skills inequality and bring out the best in our best young people. Academic kids should be encouraged to become apprentices (and they are) but not at the expense of those who didn’t like, or do so well at, school. I hope that during the early stages of the reforms, providers do not lose sight of their moral compass. It can be a hard and unequal world but apprenticeships are one way that we can make it fairer for the next generation.

Matt Garvey is managing director of West Berkshire Training Consortium. He tweets at @WBTCNewbury

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