News
World- Class Apprenticeships
Dated: 22/02/2008
Article by David Way ? National Director for Apprenticeships
David Way ? National Director for Apprenticeships
Since the publication of World-Class Apprenticeships on 28 January, I have focused all of my attention on ensuring there is wide-spread understanding of its important implications and no loss of momentum in implementing the recommendations and setting up the National Apprenticeship Service. This will remain my focus until a permanent director is appointed and that process is underway.
In my many meetings with key stakeholders, employers and deliverers of apprenticeships in the last few weeks, there has been warm support for the analysis and recommendations but a real enthusiasm for the ambition. People readily buy into the idea that Apprenticeships should play a much bigger part in preparing young people for their working lives; in helping adults to respond to big changes in their careers, including returning to work after a long break; and in giving employers the skills base on which they can build and plan a bright future for their apprentices and their businesses.
Providers will, as ever, have a vital role to play in realising this ambition and my recent discussions have focused on how we can better help those who are good performers and wish to grow. These discussions are continuing and are a very important part of tackling our most immediate priority, which is to have employers offering more apprenticeships.
While World-Class Apprenticeships is rightly a comprehensive analysis of performance and potential, we must not lose sight of the most important point we all know, that the greatest momentum is achieved by securing more high quality Apprenticeship opportunities with employers. The best ones produce a queue of keen potential apprentices wanting to seize these chances.
We will be using all of the levers at our disposal to tackle this issue, including making more use of Train to Gain brokers, the National Employers Service, and the powerful potential of Sector Skills Councils. However, we cannot achieve this increase in employer supply of Apprenticeships without fully using the provider field force to make it happen.
Although much of the focus of World-Class Apprenticeships is on 2009 and beyond, we must see significant continuing improvements this year which will provide 2008 school leavers, and those that follow, with strong evidence that Apprenticeships do indeed give them the best chance to get in and get on at work.
