Apprenticeship arrangements in teaching “remain fractured and disconnected”, a new report warns.
The research, published today by King’s College London and entitled Apprenticeships and the Pay Review Body Workforces, finds that approaches to apprenticeships are uneven across four public sectors: education, the armed forces, the NHS and police forces.
It highlights that while there is a teaching assistant apprenticeship, a TA cannot move from that programme to a three-year degree teacher apprenticeship. The report also states that the level 6 teacher apprenticeship has had limited take-up due to the “considerable range of already available entry routes into teaching” and the “limited perceived value attached by stakeholders to this apprenticeship as a means of dealing with recruitment and retention” in teaching.
GCSE resits: How can we prepare students for September?
Need to know: Halfon unveils 200K public sector apprenticeships target
Background: House of Commons short of public sector apprenticeships target
In 2017, the government introduced the public sector apprenticeship target for public sector bodies with 250 or more staff in England to employ an average of at least 2.3 per cent of their staff as new apprentice starts annually over the period 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2021.
According to today’s report, in March 2019, 1.9 per cent of the public sector workforce were on an apprenticeship. However, there had been a sharp decline in “health, public services and care” starts from 139,000 in 2016-17 to 88,000 in 2017-18.
Across the NHS, the report finds that “NHS trust engagement with the local union representatives in management of apprenticeships remains patchy, while trust capacity to spend their levy and provide the necessary supervisory support for apprentices remains problematic”.
According to the report, due to the scale and speed that police forces across England are introducing degree-level apprenticeships, challenges are arising in developing the necessary infrastructure and resources to support the training.
In the armed forces, the shift from frameworks to standards had proved to be a challenge - as did meeting the requirements for endpoint assessments, says the research.
Apprenticeships in the public sector
Ian Kessler, professor of public policy and management and lead researcher, said that the regulatory requirements underpinning the new apprenticeship model have also brought organisational challenges and pressures.
He said: “If these challenges are resolved, apprenticeships have the potential to upskill the current workforce and provide new career pathways feeding into hard-to-recruit or shortage occupations.
“Apprenticeships also impact the retention of staff through providing new and enhanced career opportunities for existing employees, but also through improving the quality of working life of other employees as upskilled colleagues relieve them of workplace burdens and, in so doing, reduce inclinations to quit.”
