After years of running down apprenticeship schemes through a policy focus on mass university education, the UK, in common with other European countries, has in the past few years turned back to apprenticeship both as a strategy for providing the skills needed in the changing economy and as a way of overcoming youth unemployment especially or those with low school attainment.

The turn to apprenticeship has gone through a number of phases. In its earliest incarnation there was a tendency to just label any vocational work based programme as an apprenticeship. This did nothing for the reputation of apprenticeships either with young people or with employers and there was widespread criticism of the quality of many of the courses on offer.

Two years ago, the government undertook yet another shakeup of the apprenticeship programme, introducing a training levy for large companies and placing a focus on higher level apprenticeships including degree programmes.

Yet this reform has also run into problems. Despite setting a target of three million new apprenticeships by 2020, there was a near 27% fall in the number taking up trainee posts in the last quarter of 2017.

The number starting apprenticeships dropped to 114,000 between August and October, down from 155,700 in the same period in 2016. That followed a 59% drop in the previous three months after the introduction of the apprenticeship levy in April last year.

The biggest drop came in “intermediate” apprenticeships, the basic level, which dropped 38% to 52,000. The highest level of apprenticeships – known as degree apprenticeships – rose nearly 27% to 11,600. Schemes for adult apprentices were worse affected than for those young people, falling by just over 30% compared with 20%.

Last week, the UK House of Commons Education Select Committee heard evidence from the Further Education minister Anne Milton, the quality inspectorate Ofsted, the Institute for Apprenticeships and the Education and Skills Funding Agency on the quality of apprenticeships and skills training.

What seems remarkable from the TES report on the issues emerging from the meeting is how much they parallel problems in other European countries attempting to develop new apprenticeship systems, such as Italy and Spain. Indeed, nearly all of the issues also emerged in our study on apprenticeship in Valencia, Spain, all be it in different forms. This first article provides a quick summary of some of the issues raised at the House of Commons, together with a look at their resonance in Spain. In later posts I will look at some of the issues separately, particularly in reference to developments in the Dual System in Germany.

Higher level apprenticeships

According to the TES, high up the agenda were degree apprenticeships. While degree apprenticeships may raise the prestige of apprenticeship funding, this does little for the lower skilled young people looking for what in the UK are called intermediate level qualifications. Similarly, in Spain the new FP Dual apprenticeship programme has gained biggest traction at a higher apprenticeship level, demanding good school examination results for entry.

Despite the fact that Spain has a decentralised regional system for approving new apprenticeship programmes and the UK operates a national system, in both countries there seems to be significant issues around the level of bureaucracy in getting approval for new programmes and for the management of programmes.

Judging quality

In both countries too, the quality of apprenticeship programmes appears to be variable. Paul Joyce, deputy director for FE and skills at Ofsted, said there was a “very mixed picture” in terms of the quality of apprenticeships, adding: “It is certainly not a universally positive picture in terms of quality.” He said that of those providers inspected so far this year, “round about half are ‘requiring improvement’ or are ‘inadequate’, so it’s a very mixed bag”.

In Spain with no inspection system and few attempts at any systematic evaluation it is difficult to judge quality. Anecdotal evidence suggest also a “very mixed picture” in part due to the lack of training for trainers.

The role of Small and Medium Enterprises

The House of Commons Select Committee heard from Keith Smith, director of apprenticeships at the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA), who said there was an aspiration to give employers more control in the system.

He added: “For small businesses, we need to be really careful we provide them with the right support and infrastructure to do that. They’re not the same as big levy-paying employers, they don’t have the same back-office support.

“We’re trying to design this very much with micro-businesses in mind. So, if it works for micro-businesses, it will work for all small businesses.”

Despite that, there would appear to be little take up from small businesses at present, possibly due to lack of knowledge about the new system, or because of the bureaucracy involved.

Similarly in Spain, there is limited take up by small businesses, Whilst in reality vocational schools are in charge of the system, the curriculum for apprenticeship programmes is developed in partnership between the schools and the companies.

More support needed for disadvantaged

Apprenticeships and skills minister Ms Milton said she will do what she can to break down barriers for disadvanataged people, including lobbying other ministers on issues such as travel discounts, an apprentice premium and the benefits system. After education secretary Damian Hinds yesterday refused to commit to the Conservatives’ manifesto pledge of transport subsidies for apprentices, Ms Milton was also coy on the issue.

In Spain there is continuing confusion over support for apprentices. With the adoption of the FP Dual system largely in the control of the regional governments, different regions have different policies, some stipulating pay for apprentices, some of training allowance and others not. Similarly, in some regions transport is paid and in others not. Sometimes it depends on agreements between individual employers and vocational schools.

Interest in Vocational Education and Training (VET) seems to go in cycles. Its always around but some times it is much more to the forefront than others as a debate over policy and practice. Given the pervasively high levels of youth unemployment, at least in south Europe, and the growing fears over future jobs, it is perhaps not surprising that the debate around VET is once more in the ascendancy. And the debates over how VET is structured, the relation of VET to higher education, the development of new curricula, the uses of technology for learning, the fostering of informal learning, relations between companies and VET schools, the provision of high quality careers counselling and guidance, training the trainers – I could go on – are always welcome.

Whilst in some countries like the UK deregulation seems to have created many jobs, most of these are low paid and insecure.

Higher productivity requires innovation and innovation is in turn dependent on the skills and knowledge of the workforce. But in a time of deregulation there is little incentive for employers to invest in workforce training.

There are signs that some companies are beginning to realise they have a problem. There has been a notable interest from a number of large companies in supporting new apprenticeship programmes and not just in the German speaking countries. In Spain the recently launched Alliance for FP Dual is making slow but steady progress in persuading companies to support the FP Dual alternance or apprenticeship programme. There remain many obstacles, not least the continuing austerity programme, political instability and the perilous financial position of many small and medium enterprises. I will talk more about some of these issues in forthcoming articles on this web site, coming out of the findings of a  small research project in Valencia sponsored by the International Network on Innovative Apprenticeship (INAP).

But to be successful initiatives like the Spanish FP Dual and the wider EU backed Alliance for Apprenticeships have to be linked to wider programmes to promote innovation. Without some degree of labour market regulation this is going to be hard to achieve.

The UK Parliament Public Accounts Committee has warned  the declining financial health of many FE colleges has “potentially serious consequences for learners and local economies”.

It finds funding and oversight bodies have been slow to address emerging financial and educational risks, with current oversight arrangements leading to confusion over who should intervene and when.

The Report says the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills and the Skills Funding Agency “are not doing enough to help colleges address risks at an early stage”.

Graham me invita a participar con un blog semanal, invitación que acepto por muchos y variados motivos, entre los que quiero destacar ahora nuestro común conocimiento, cooperación e intercambio de ideas en proyectos europeos desde hace ya unos años, tal vez, si no recuerdo mal desde 2007, a los que han seguido contactos posteriores más informales compartiendo puntos de vista sobre formación, educación, evolución de las políticas europeas y nacionales…

De 2007 a hoy, hemos ido pasando, en un entorno convulso, a nuevas situaciones. El “horizonte” ha ido y va cambiando, situación bien distinta a la de los años 60-70 del pasado siglo

Entiendo con ello abrir una “ventana” sobre el escenario español, respecto del que iré presentando breves comentarios -a modo de “contrapunto”– sobre zonas y puntos críticos de esa evolución (la formación continua, las reformas en curso de aplicación planteadas en la formación profesional, la cooperación a escala europea, la emergencia de nuevas prácticas). Abrir una ventana es ponerse en la posición bien conocida del “espectador” pero en este blog –sine ira et studio– nuestra atención dirigirá su atención a los actores/operadores implicados y siempre que sea posible, que lo es, a nivel local y si puedo mediar dejar que sean ellos quienes hablen.

Frente al presentismo actual, trataré de recuperar la dimensión socio-histórica ¿cómo y qué pasados perviven – están ahí- en las prácticas y cómo cambian y se orientan en los tiempos de ahora?. Algo puede tener que ver este enfoque con temas -de interés renovado- como los relativos a una “pedagogía de la memoria”, parte sustantiva, en mi opinión, de una “pedagogía social”, cuestiones muy presentes otrora en la historia española del s. XX, en los años en los que se habló de “Vieja y Nueva Política”, cuestiones recordadas hoy en la revisión del ciclo histórico de la Transición española. Continuidad-discontinuidad en los procesos históricos…

Viene a cuento transcribir del editorial de Le Monde de hoy 7 de enero de 2016 las siguientes palabras:

“C’est une situation inédite pour un pays qui a brillamment réussi sa transition vers la démocratie, après la mort de Franco en 1975. Les espagnols expériment une nouvelle forme de transition: l’ancien monde n’est pas mort, maus le nouveau n´est pas tout à fait né. (Aprés les élections, l’Espagne sans tête)”.

Ayer o anteayer podía leer uno en El País la necesidad de diagnósticos compartidos antes de la eventual investidura (Sartorius y López Garrido, Opinión).

Reparemos ahora solo en algunos términos clave: experimentación, transición, diagnósticos compartidos…

A partir de referentes que serán por lo común los que depara la actualidad, el blog descansará en la experiencia personal. Mis primeras entregas dirigirán su objetivo –como si de una cámara fotográfica se tratara, espero que cámara lúcida– a la formación continua y áreas hoy de debate en la educación-formación.

Doy por sentado que el eventual lector estará al corriente de la situación política española (¿cómo si no dar forma a la citada dimensión socio-histórica de los problemas?).

Agradezco a Graham esta oportunidad de renovar nuestros encue

According to Times Higher Education: “The gap between university entry rates for the most advantaged and disadvantaged students is wider than previously thought, and progress in closing it has halted.” They report that “Research by Ucas indicates that the most privileged school leavers may be three times more likely to enter higher education than the least privileged.” This is far higher than previous analysis has suggested. Using a measure based on local socio economic data, gender, ethnicity and eligibility for free school meals, the study found that only 14 per cent of the least advantaged group entered higher education in 2015, compared with the 18 per cent figure 45.3 per cent of the most advantaged groups.

These findings are hardly surprising. Amongst all the different measures of predictive achievement, social class remains the most compelling. And with inequality in income and standard of living growing rapidly in the UK, it is hardly surprising that inequality in access to higher education is also growing. It  may also be considered that £9000 annual tuition fees may also be a disincentive to the ‘least advantaged’, even when the carrot of the so called graduate premium is dangled before them

It seems ever more evident that education cannot be viewed in separation from the labour market and the economy. As inequality in economies grows ever greater, so too does inequality in education. So the first featured video of 2016 is by Economist and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, speaking at the Vienna University of Economics (WU). The The event was held on the 29 November 2015 at WU and was co-organized by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), WU’s Department of Economics, WU’s Research Institute for Economics of Inequality (INEQ), and the WU VW-Zentrum student support office.

One of the big talking points at last weeks DISCUSS conference in Munich was the current influx of refugees into Germany and the challenges for public services. It seems up to 5000 refugees are arriving daily at Munich’s main railways station.

Most participants at the conference would agree with Marcel Fratzscher, the head of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), who is reported in today’s Guardian newspaper as saying  the hundreds of thousands of newcomers this year as well as the hundreds of thousands more expected over the coming years, are a major opportunity for Germany and that its strong financial position makes it ideally placed to welcome them.

“In the long run the refugees are an incredible opportunity for Germany,” Fratzscher said. “Because of the surplus in the public budget, and a labour market that’s doing incredibly well, there’s probably never been a better moment in the last 70 years for Germany to deal with the challenge.”

But the concerns expressed by participants in the DISCUSS conference were more short term. Germany has an incredibly well structured and functioning state and local government bureaucracy. But at a time when under pressure it is proving insufficiently flexible to deal with new demands, a position made worse by the rigid hierarchies common in European public services. Furthermore there is little communication between the different services involved in supporting the refugees, resulting individuals being sent from department to department and back again.

For education one of the longer term challenges will be developing infrastructure for instance the need for more kindergartens. In the short term the major challenge is developing provision for language learning and skills and knowledge for employment. Traditionally, refugees have attended language learning courses, prior to enrolment on work orientated programmes. instead now a new programme is being developed called “Living and Working in Germany” which will integrate language learning within work orientated education and training. This programme is designed to last for eight months, with five hours a day of attendance. However, at present the curriculum is still being developed (I only talked with researchers from two German Lander, or regions, and provision may well be different in other German states). Responsibility for the programmes is with the adult education services, often allied to the universities. But they clearly do not have enough teachers for these programmes. In response to this the requirement for teachers to have a special qualification for teaching German as a foreign language is being relaxed. A major pedagogic issue is that the refugees are being treated as a homogeneous group, with well qualified graduates in classes alongside those lacking basic education.

The challenge of ramping up provision is considerable. It was estimated that at the moment less than five per cent of newly arrived refugees are enrolled on courses. Just who gets a place on the courses seems to be somewhat random and this is leading to tensions. Whilst their asylum applications are being processed refugees are not allowed to work in Germany and boredom is seen as a major issue.

One of the learning cafe session groups at the conference focused on the challenge of providing education for the refugees looking for ideas for immediate initiatives and projects. Ideas included the need for better careers advice and occupational guidance, traditionally in Germany integrated in the education and training system. Another idea was to involve Meisters, qualified trade crafts people and owners of Small and Medium Enterprises, in the training programmes. A further idea was to develop mobile applications for language learning and vocational orientation. Although access to computers is limited, many of the refugees have smart phones which are critical to keeping in touch with families. A big issue is how to identify the skills and competences of the refugees and how to recognise or accredit these (I will write a further article on this). It was also pointed out that the European Commission has funded many projects for working with refugees but the results of these projects has all too often failed to be sustainable or properly disseminated.

If anyone would like to be interviewed around ideas of how to deal with these challenges or indeed about the immediate responses, please get in touch by Skype or email. My skype address is GrahamAttwell.

The latest edition of Times Higher Education reports how universities in the UK are turning down research funding from medical charities because of a lack of government financial support. Although the grant covers research costs it does not cover overheads. But it is not just UK universities or medical research in which this is happening. Travelling around various conferences this summer, a persistent talking point was the shortage of funding. In education and training and technology enhanced learning, one result is that few people are any longer employed on permanent contracts and many are getting by on part time contracts. One of the knock on effects of this is that more and more time is being spent chasing grant money from national or EU programmes. But noone s being paid to write bids, so this time consuming and often frustrating work is being done in researchers own time. And of course with more and more organisations chasing a reduced pool of funding the competition is increasingly fierce. Ten years ago most universities did not even apply for Lifelong Learning programme grants because this was not considered to be research. Now such is demand for its successor programme, Erasmus Plus, that the threshold for success seems to be to achieve 90 per cent or higher in the evaluation.

Yet at the same time, government policies harp on about the importance of research to innovation. But without proper funding it will become increasingly difficult to attract researchers, let alone undertake good research

NFER have been commissioned by the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) to carry out a small-scale rapid literature review of the value of vocational qualifications offered in the UK by JCQ. The review was carried out February-April 2015 and sought to answer the following questions: (1) How is the value of vocational qualifications defined? (2) What is the reported value of vocational qualifications (e.g. benefits for the individual learner, business, and the economy)? (3) Are there gaps in the research on the value of vocational qualifications, and if so, what further information would be useful to have for policy and practice?

Following a systematic search of databases and websites, the project team scrutinised 73 texts making an independent ‘best evidence’ selection of 16 to be reviewed, based on relevance to the research questions and the quality of the evidence. The reviewed texts focused on young people aged 14-25 and were published in English in the United Kingdom from the year 2009.

Key Findings:

The literature review identified benefits for all stakeholders in young people taking vocational qualifications:

• Learners: increased likelihood of being in employment and a significant wage return for all levels and most types of vocational qualifications. Increased access to higher education for the poorest learners.
• Businesses: increased productivity and a more skilled workforce.
• Economy/Exchequer: a positive financial return for most qualifications, with particularly high returns associated with Level 3. A reduction in benefit dependency and increase in income tax.

The full report can be downloaded here.