The theory known as Godwin’s law states that the longer an online discussion continues, the probability of someone using a comparison to Adolf Hitler “approaches 1” (inevitability). In education policy discussions, there’s a similar phenomenon concerning apprenticeships. Yet whereas employing a Nazi analogy is deemed to lead to the user losing the argument, mentioning apprenticeships is a surefire way of securing a bout of assenting murmurs and nods.

Apprenticeships are, therefore, A Good Thing. Everyone agrees with that, surely. But what if they aren’t?

They certainly ought to be. In fact, if one was looking to describe a single education policy that encapsulated May-ism, it would be apprenticeships. They speak to those left behind by mainstream education or who want to pursue a non-university route. They offer a way to train more UK workers as opposed to depending on migration, and they provide a route to social mobility.

In Justine Greening’s speech to the Tory party conference, what was most interesting was her insistence that getting technical education right, including apprenticeships, would be her focus.

Hence the dropping of the “Academies for All” Bill and replacing it with one implementing some radical changes to 16-19 technical education.

Not up to scratch

So it’s worrying, therefore, that in a report published by Policy Exchange today, my co-author (and fellow TES contributor) Tom Richmond and I conclude that perhaps as many as one in three of the new apprenticeship standards designed by employers and approved by government aren’t up to scratch - either because they lack the content to plug skills gaps or they do not include sufficient length and breadth of training or they are poorly assessed.

Without changes, we estimate that at least £500 million a year will be spent by 2020 on putting young people (and older adults) through these new apprenticeship standards, which are supposedly best in class, but which in reality are sub-par, and won’t give them the specific training and exposure to an industry that they were promised.

The assessment issue is perhaps the most startling. In 40 per cent of cases where an apprentice has started on one of the new programmes, there is not yet a plan for how it will assess whether they have met the requirements, or indeed who will do it.

The DfE must shift away from a mindset of prioritising numbers of apprentices over the quality of the programmes

Think about that for a second. Imagine if four out of 10 people currently sitting maths GCSE had no idea what their qualification was going to look like, and there was no assessment framework and no exam board contracted to write and mark exam scripts.

The good news is that a single Department for Education has a chance now to sort this out; if it can shift away from a mindset of prioritising numbers of apprentices over the quality of the programmes they will undertake.

An apprenticeships system in a country that works for everyone, not just a privileged few, has the potential to do so much better. Schools and apprentices deserve nothing less.

Jonathan Simons is a former head of education in the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit under Gordon Brown and David Cameron