HAP Meet with National Learner Panel - 10/01/2008
On 10th January 2008, the Humber Apprentices Panel (HAP) joined with members of the National Learner Panel and a member of the Yorkshire & Humber Regional Learner Panel to share their progress as a panel to date and to input into the DIUS Apprenticeship review.
DIUS was keen to work with panel members to identify how this expansion might best be achieved.
Through a combination of presentation and discussion, participants highlighted the key concerns that they had regarding the current apprenticeship situation, and identified a set of recommendations for improvement going forward. The apprentices' concerns and recommendations are outlined below.
As apprentices ourselves, we are concerned about the following issues with the current apprenticeship situation:
We believe that the status and poor image of apprenticeships is a major stumbling block in encouraging more people to take them up. The image of apprenticeship as a ‘second-best' option to college and other academic forms of education is largely to do with lack of information about the benefits of this way of learning, such as the opportunity to:
• earn while you learn
• work your way up with hands-on experience
• experience the best of both worlds
• get the job you want in future
• improve your standard of life
• broaden your future opportunities
• experience a sense of achievement
• work at your own pace
• Achieve a range of qualifications, offers more than many college courses whilst being a full time employee
The public perception that apprenticeship is for ‘less capable' people becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when accompanied by the intense peer-pressure to join college.
We also experience the ambiguity of whether as apprentices we are students or workers. It is easy for us to feel a sense of isolation as a result, and consequently we don't automatically affiliate ourselves with either work-related representative organisations (such as Unison) or student-based ones (such as the National Union of Students). We're not clear on whether we're entitled to join the student-based organisations or to have student discounts cards etc. On a practical level, discount cards would clearly be of use to us as we are on such low wages. But, just as importantly, on a ‘social' level, confusion about whether we're even entitled to these can exacerbate our sense of feeling isolated from students in more academic kinds of learning.
In our experience, a good quality apprenticeship depends to a great extent on a good quality employer. Sadly, in addition to the poor perception held by schools and the general public, many employers only have a limited awareness of the benefits of offering apprenticeships. Too few employers appreciate the benefit of employing us as young, motivated and committed learners, who will offer our time and continually developing skills for less than the cost of existing employees, or expectations from newly qualified recruits. An additional incentive for good employers is the opportunity for them to inform our skills development to meet the current and future needs of the businesses.
The question of seeking parity with the minimum wage is a hotly debated issue amongst the members of the panel. All of us are in agreement that a minimum of £80 a week is not adequate by any standards and feel very strongly that the issue of low wages needs to be addressed if more people are to be encouraged to take up apprenticeships.
However, whilst we are all in agreement that in principle it would be ideal for us to be paid at least the minimum wage, some of us are concerned that in practice making the minimum wage mandatory would discourage employers from offering apprenticeships because of the limited awareness of many employers.
The funding opportunities for apprenticeships decrease sharply for those who are above the age of 19. This discrepancy in the funding regime has an adverse effect on widening the net of apprenticeships as the costs for acquiring training become prohibitive. This issue is affected again by poor employer awareness of the benefits in terms of engaging, committing and contributing to the cost of Apprenticeships. A further factor impacting is the increasing number of young people seeking Apprenticeships at a later stage (often after 2 years at sixth form or FE) which leads onto the panel point about poor information, advice and guidance.
Information, advice and guidance about apprenticeships is poor – they are not promoted as widely or systematically as academic options when young people are looking at the next steps during and after leaving school. Many of us only found out about apprenticeship opportunities via word of mouth or by randomly happening upon an advert in the local paper. We received no proper IAG on apprenticeships from either school or Connexions.
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