An appeal to industry from education

David Lewin, Director of Faculty at North East Surrey College of Technology (NESCOT), and Chris Claydon, the Chief Executive of JTL, joined ECA's Employer Skills Surgery to discuss education, apprenticeships and employment. Read on for their key takeaways...

Last week, the two of us had the pleasure of addressing ECA’s fourth Skills Surgery session. These online events offer a fantastic opportunity for ECA members to learn about the latest developments in education and skills, share experiences, and benefit from examples of good practice. To find out more about future Skills Surgeries, sign up here.

Last week’s session asked how industry and education can work together more effectively to deliver the best possible learning outcomes. As leaders of a large college and a large independent training provider, both with long track records of delivering quality apprenticeships, this is a subject we know and care a lot about!

Now is an especially challenging time for organisations like ours. We and other providers are facing rapidly rising costs and lower (or no) increases to the funding we get from governments. The mismatch between expenditure and income is making it increasingly hard to deliver long, technically demanding apprenticeships like electrical, plumbing and HVAC effectively, without incurring a sizeable financial loss. In addition, spiralling pay rates in industry are making it ever more difficult for us to attract and hang onto good quality staff. 

Some providers are responding by pulling out of offering these apprenticeships altogether. Others are becoming more selective about what they offer and where. The extra costs incurred, and income lost, when apprentices complete late, or fail to complete at all, mean that many of us are going to have to raise the standard of Maths and English which applicants must achieve before we can agree to take them on.

Employers are of course essential to the success of apprenticeships, and both of us value the close relationships our organisations already enjoy with employers. Nevertheless, there is still more you can do to help your local training centre or college maintain the number and quality of apprenticeships that we deliver.

First, please do all the things which your national government requires you to do as an employer of apprentices. In England, the full list of employer obligations can be found here. They include providing the apprentice with real, productive work to be able to meet the standard; taking part in regular reviews, support and feedback with the apprentice and training provider; and, attending a Gateway meeting with the apprentice and training provider to discuss occupational competence and readiness for End Point Assessment. 

Paying the 5% employer contribution required in England on time and in full is also important. Without it, your provider automatically loses a further 20% of the funding available for that apprentice.

Secondly, please be sympathetic to any request your provider makes for technical or material support. Do not underestimate the value you can add by inputting into curriculum development and/or assisting with curriculum delivery. Contributions such as these help us ensure content is up to date and relevant to the workplace. Likewise, donations of equipment and consumables are always welcome.      

Finally, please ensure your apprentice is getting the right day-to-day supervision and support in the workplace. Good mentors are crucial and your local college or training centre may be able to assist you with training and other guidance to help turn a good mentor into a great one. If you are up for it, we can even explore the option of training someone in your organisation to become a qualified assessor in their own right. This potentially reduces your firm’s reliance on our assessors, whilst at the same time offering an enjoyable and enriching development opportunity for the person concerned.

In time, we can all hope to see funding levels rise, and some of the challenges we have described become less acute than they are today. The provider community as a whole would certainly welcome ECA using its voice at national and local levels to call for increases. Equally important (especially now) is for industry and training providers to collaborate ever more closely so as to maintain and even improve the quality of the apprenticeship experience and the number of successful completions.