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ePolitix.com Stakeholders comment on the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill ahead of its second reading in the Commons.
Stakeholder Response: Chartered Insurance Institute
The Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill
The CII welcomes the focus this Bill brings upon Apprenticeships and the measures it contains to increase the quality and number of apprenticeships as well as wider understanding of them. Given the persistent stereotype that apprenticeships are a 'second rate' option, is key that all those with an interest continue to work towards ensuring apprenticeships' parity of esteem with other 'traditional' or 'academic' qualifications.
We hope that the measures within the Bill and the statutory footing this Bill gives to apprenticeships and the entitlement to apprenticeship places, will provide further impetus to the take up of apprenticeships within financial service, alongside the work of bodies like the CII.
Framework Development
We hope that the proposals within this Bill will encourage frameworks to be developed and launched in shorter time periods than at present. We understand that such work does take time, however the financial services sector is one that demands solutions at the earliest opportunity, and the current lead time of 12 to 18 months to launch a framework needs to be reduced so that sector employers are able find the programme that best meets their needs sooner.
National Apprenticeship Service
We are particularly pleased with the creation of a National Apprenticeship Service (NAS) which will be a service within the Skills Funding Agency. This will provide a focal point for the programme and will hopefully help pick up some of the slack that currently exists in the system (presently dealt with by professional bodies like the CII). Of utmost importance in relation to the NAS is its ability to interact and engage with employers, providers and schools on a local, regional and national scale. If the system is to provide what is needed, then the NAS has to be able to open meaningful and productive dialogue from day one.
Careers Guidance in Schools
We also welcome the duty on schools to provide high-quality and balanced information, advice and guidance (IAG) on apprenticeships to pupils. We believe that there is a worrying lack of IAG around apprenticeships (particularly in the FS sector) with many schools seemingly unaware that there exist apprenticeships in the insurance and financial services sectors. A 'world class' apprenticeship service will require world class advice and so we would raise a question around securing good quality advice in schools. How is the government going to make sure that young people are receiving the right kind of information? Will guidance be enough?
We hope that this duty will help bring about a step change (through good quality advice) so that young people can make an informed choice around their career options, rather than one which reflects the experience of their parents or those offering careers advice. It is essential that apprenticeships are not positioned as a second-best option for students, but as a valid alternative to higher education. Once this has been done the FS sector can continue the larger job of reaching out to its future workforce. The CII is taking active steps to ensure the success of this activity.
Stakeholder Response: National Union of Teachers
On initial consideration of the government's ASCL Bill, Christine Blower, acting general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, Europe's largest teaching union, said: "We are concerned about the creation of a plethora of new agencies, with the Skills Funding Agency and the Young People's Learning Agency. We are in danger of exchanging the bureaucracy of the LSC for two new agencies.
"The proposal to require the YPLA to enter into funding arrangements with the government indicates that the government wants to divest itself of direct control of academies. I wish the government would come to the obvious conclusion. The way forward for academies is not through being controlled by a non-accountable government agency but to become members of the democratically accountable local authority of schools.
"Ofqual needs to be a genuinely independent authority regulating public exams and maintaining confidence. Its ability to validate examinations should not be constrained by the ability of the government to refuse to fund any new examinations it approves.
"The NUT has real reservations about making Children's Trusts statutory, particularly if they are going to require schools to provide separate reports on pupil behaviour. They could be simply another body imposing bureaucratic demands on schools.
"Rather than ratcheting up an oppressive and outdated inspection model with school inspection health checks the government should initiate an independent review of how schools are evaluated. The criteria should be that inspection is designed to support and assist school improvements, not vilify schools.
"The proposed power to search for drugs, alcohol and stolen items leaves headteachers exposed if they feel they have to search for other reasons. Instead, headteachers should be given the power, but not the obligation, to search if they believe pupils are at risk of imminent harm to themselves or others."
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd
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