The economic disruption caused by Covid-19 has few precedents in living memory. We could be living through the most severe economic downturn in a generation, with things only likely to get more challenging before they get better. 

Ensuring an equitable recovery of job opportunities stands as one of the most urgent challenges facing the UK economy. Colleges have a critical role to play in addressing this crisis. There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that young people will experience the downturn most acutely. By promoting a massive expansion of programmes and courses, colleges can help young people develop their skills in anticipation of a broader recovery of economic activity. 

News: Traineeships to get £111m boost from Treasury

More: Ofsted to 'visit' colleges and providers from September

Background: Apprenticeship starts almost halve during lockdown

Empowering key workers

Colleges have underpinned the response effort to coronavirus. They have helped to empower key workers across health and care, retail, logistics transport and more who have kept the country going through such difficult and painful times. We still face skills gaps across these sectors, and so there will hopefully be a new impetus for education providers, government and employers to work together to address these systemic issues.

Equally, colleges also have a role to play in the recovery effort. They can facilitate the upskilling and retraining for workers who have been made redundant. They can assist job seekers, signpost them to relevant opportunities and provide careers advice and information services.

A key focus for the government economic recovery plans needs to be apprenticeships. The prime minister has announced an opportunity guarantee to boost the Covid-19 economy. The announcement is welcome, but there is little information on how it will work in practice.

The notion of an apprenticeship guarantee was always going to be difficult. An apprenticeship is a job with training. For many companies, it is difficult to take on new apprentices at a time of such uncertainty. The latest apprenticeship statistics show that there were almost 50 per cent fewer apprenticeship starts between 23 March and 31 May than in the same period last year. 

The prime minister has also pledged to invest in infrastructure and “build, build, build”. This is welcome, but the construction industry had massive skills shortages before Covid-19, so where are all these construction workers going to come from as an apprenticeship takes time? It is not easy, or quick, to turn a barista into an electrician.

What is needed in the short term is an ambitious set of measures to support employers to take on new apprentices. This could include direct subsidies to employers to support the payment of apprentices’ wages. Reporting in the national press has suggested that the government could give employers £3,000 for every apprentice they hire under the age of 25. This is no doubt welcome, but this alone may not be sufficient. 

Issues with the system

Even before the coronavirus crisis, there were many issues with the apprenticeship system – some of the issues that we spoke about two years ago are still evident today. A programme of incentive payments would need to be combined with measures to address the structural deficiencies of the apprenticeship system. 

Such changes could include changes to the apprenticeship rules to enable flexible delivery of off-the-job training. Options could be explored to front-load training element in anticipation of the gradual opening up of key economic sectors.

Urgent action is also needed on apprenticeship funding bands. We are aware that the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education is currently undertaking a review of pricing bands for apprenticeships. The current pricing structure makes many necessary standards unaffordable to deliver. Take, for example, the adult care worker standards at levels two and three, which is currently priced at £3,000. Work in the sector is generally low paid with an average salary of around £17,200.

A decline in training opportunities and low wages has contributed to a shortage of 122,000 FTE staff in adult social care. This trend is only going to get more pronounced under the introduction of a new immigration system from next year. The level of pay for care workers is an urgent issue that needs to be addressed; alongside this, renewed effort should be made to ensure that socially valuable apprenticeships are available to deliver as widely as possible. 

The challenges ahead are significant, but apprenticeships can form a crucial part of the government’s economic recovery strategy. Together with the broader support role that colleges can play, they should be viewed as indispensable partners in stimulating a fair economic recovery in which opportunity is evenly spread.