Clause 8
Education and Skills Bill
1:15 pm
John Hayes (Shadow Minister, Innovation, Universities and Skills; South Holland and The Deepings, Conservative)
It is appropriate to say a word or two about the clause standing part because, according to the explanatory notes:
“Clause 8 provides that, if a person fulfils the duty to participate by working and pursuing part time education or training towards an accredited qualification, then the training provided by a person’s employer, or any other education or training towards accredited qualifications, must be equivalent to 280 guided learning hours”.
The phrase that matters is “guided learning hours”.
The Committee heard from Professor Lorna Unwin during the evidence sessions, and I recommend her work to you and the Committee, Mr. Bercow. She is an authority on training and particularly on apprenticeships. She told the Committee that some apprenticeships contain little or no guided or mentored workplace learning. That is a shocking fact. Who would believe that an apprenticeship can be worthy of its name if it is not mentored, does not contain a workplace element or is not employer-engaged?
To be fair to the Minister and the Government, they have recently issued an apprenticeship review, which I have critiqued—as you will know, Mr. Bercow, because I sent you a copy. That review suggests provision for a statutory definition of what constitutes an apprenticeship. That is something that I have called for, as the Minister with responsibility for skills acknowledged before the publication of the review. It would be an important point of progress. I presume that that definition will include a minimum baseline requirement for workplace training, mentoring and—by definition—employer engagement.
It is critical that the Bill reflects the Government’s change commitment. I do not blame the Minister that that provision is not in it because it was drawn up before the review was published. However, he could reflect on whether thought needs to be given to guided learning hours to bring it into line with current Government thinking.
I want to say a little more about Lorna Unwin. Professor Unwin told the Committee that sometimes
“the employer does not really play any role in the actual training for a number of apprenticeships. What is happening—this links again to the concept of the competence-based NVQ—the training provider goes into the employer’s premises and assesses the young person against the competences and the key skills, and perhaps even having the apprenticeships for their off-the-job training in the training provider’s premises. I meet many employers whose role is entirely that of employer, in the sense that the young person is there to do a job of work.”——[Official Report, Education and Skills Public Bill Committee, 24 January 2008; c. 106, Q270.]
In other words, there is a gap between their role as an employer and their role as an organisation assisting with the training of young people. The Bill goes some way to bridging that gap by creating new duties, but we need to be absolutely clear what guided learning hours mean in this context.