Focus apprenticeships on young people instead of skilled graduates, CSJ urges

The Centre for Social Justice’s (CSJ) Trade Secrets - How to reboot apprenticeships and kick-start the recovery report warns that the number of 16- to 24-year-olds not in employment, education or training (NEET) could increase from 795,000  to one million in the next year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

A further 800,000 people aged 18 to 24 are expected to join the jobs market, it adds, “only to face a barren landscape”.

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The report states that apprenticeships should be “at the heart” of the UK’s recovery from the crisis. 

However, it warns that “apprenticeships also lean too heavily towards highly qualified employees, and not enough towards school leavers”.

One reason for this is that some companies are using funds from the apprenticeship levy to rebadge existing training for employees while “very few” entry level (level 2) apprenticeships are being approved, the CSJ says.

“While the overall number of apprenticeships dropped by a quarter between 2014/15 and 2018/19, higher-level apprenticeships have in fact grown substantially,” it adds.

“We fully support raising standards in the apprenticeships sector, as we do in education more generally, and some apprenticeships needed to go. However, good-quality level 2 options boost wages and employability, and offer good returns to the public purse, and we must make sure we have an adequate number of level 2 apprenticeships in the market,” the report states.

“While our apprenticeships system should play a part in reskilling established workers, it must not crowd out opportunities for people who are about to join the market – particularly during the pandemic, which is rapidly extinguishing their prospects. The scarring effects of youth unemployment are deep and we must do all we can to avert them.”

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​The CSJ also warns that disadvantaged young people are less likely to find out about apprenticeships and therefore, have less access to them.

“Careers advice in schools often leans strongly towards academic routes; and university outreach does not focus enough on them,” the report states.

It comes months after Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced the government’s “kickstart” scheme in a bid to reduce youth unemployment as lockdown restrictions ease.

In a raft of recommendations accompanying the report, the CSJ urges the government to “ should rebalance the levy so that it supports more young people”.

This should include government funding of all training costs associated with apprenticeships for 16- to 18-year-olds.

“Individuals who hold an existing degree-level qualification should not be able to draw down on apprenticeship funds to undertake a degree-level apprenticeship,” it adds.

Further recommendations include the creation of more traineeships, the “prompt” approval of more level two positions “where there is demand” and an increase of training opportunities in the public sector.

Jane Hickie, managing director at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said the CSJ was “absolutely right to talk up how vital it is for the government to support starter level (level 2) apprenticeships when the immediate prospects for young people look so bleak”.

“This is not just about funding although the government should be doing something about the pitiful rate of funding available for adult social care worker apprenticeships; it is also about being more responsive to the demands of employers in the public and private sectors who can’t understand for example why there is no longer a level 2 apprenticeship available for business administration.

“The pandemic couldn’t have come at a worse time for this year’s school-leavers and AELP strongly supports the CSJ’s recommendation that the government should go back to fully funding the apprenticeships of 16 to 18 year olds out of its mainstream budgets instead of relying on the levy,” said Hickie.