Apprenticeship Policy in England: Increasing Skills versus Boosting Young People's Job Prospects

Abstract

There is cross-party consensus in Britain that increasing the number of apprenticeships is an important way of dealing with the country’s deficit in intermediate skills. In addition to raising skill levels, there has been a further aim of apprenticeship policy: to improve the job prospects of young people (which have been deteriorating since the mid-2000s). But although these two policy aims should be mutually reinforcing, they have often been in conflict.Successive British governments have developed a dysfunctional funding and delivery model for apprenticeship. Government agencies and private providers have been used to design apprenticeship programmes and procure places, and a substantial proportion of government funding for apprenticeship training is swallowed up by the processes required to account for it. This model deters employers and stifles the growth of apprenticeships. Fewer than one in ten employers in England train apprentices compared with a quarter or more in countries where the apprenticeship system works well – for example, Germany, Austria and Switzerland.Compared with many other European countries, apprenticeships in England are relatively highly paid and, unsurprisingly, in generally low demand by employers. They are also of shorter duration than most continental European apprenticeships – one year rather than three – and they are more geared towards adults. The Labour government’s policies expanded apprenticeships to lower skill groups and enacted legislation to provide an entitlement to apprenticeship for all qualified young people who wanted one. Since it came to power in 2010, the coalition government has focused on expanding adult apprenticeships and dropping the entitlement to an apprenticeship offer to the young. This apprenticeship policy has created an unprecedented number of adult (over-25) apprenticeships.Adults’ share of apprenticeship places is now larger than that of the under-19s. This is likely to weaken the ability of apprenticeships to improve the failing youth labour market.Despite the commitment of substantial public resources over many years to apprentice training, far too few young people benefit and not enough high value skills have been developed. The coalition government should develop a simpler model that prioritises high skills and directs public funds for apprenticeship to any employer who can give young people long-duration, high-quality training.