Tory apprenticeship target forces hundreds of thousands of youngsters into low-paid schemes

Apprentices are paid just £2.73 an hour and their qualifications are worth little, say experts

Hundreds of thousands of youngsters are being pushed into low-skill, low-pay, training schemes to meet the Tories’ “mad” apprenticeship target.
Sixty per cent of new apprentices are studying for qualifications worth no more than five GCSE passes, research shows.
Current schemes include apprenticeships in street cleaning, warehouse labouring and shop work.
Greedy businesses can cut their costs by offering apprenticeships; firms can pay 18-year-old apprentices just £2.73 an hour rather than the £5.13 national minimum wage for the age group.
Tory ministers want to create three million apprentices by 2020.
But Professor Alison Wolf, who led a 2011 government review into vocational education, said: “It is a mad and artificial political target which risks undermining the reputation of apprenticeships.”

Less than three per cent of new apprenticeships are at the “higher level” – equivalent to a foundation degree.

So far this year, there have been only 220 new science and maths apprenticeships created at any level.

Engineering and manufacturing apprenticeships make up fewer than one in five of the new jobs.

Many roles advertised on the Government’s website seem like typical school-leaver jobs in admin, catering and shop work “rebranded” as apprenticeships.
Latest government figures analysed by the Campaign for Science and Engineering found that between August 2014 and January this year only 7,500 degree-level apprenticeships were started, the Independent reported.
There were 92,700 “advanced” apprenticeships started – equivalent to two A-level passes – while the majority, 148,300, were at a so-called “intermediate” level which is the equivalent of five GCSE passes.
CSE acting director Naomi Weir warned: “The political narrative is about high-level, technical, graduate-equivalent apprenticeships whereas the reality is that there are only a few thousand of these across the whole apprenticeship system.
“That is not a viable alternative to university. It could be but there needs to be a lot of effort to get us into a position of having a high-level technical system that we need to run alongside higher education.”
Prof Wolf added: “What the Government should be doing is concentrating on those high-value apprenticeships which teach vocational skills in manufacturing and engineering which historically Britain has been bad at fostering.
“The danger is that money and resources is put into hitting a meaningless numerical target.”

Labour’s Shadow Business Secretary Chuka Umunna said it was “scandalous” that out of more than 250,000 apprenticeships in 2013-14, just 140 were in science and maths.
“Britain has a dire shortage of STEM [science, technology, engineering and maths] skills, and this demonstrates that ministers are not addressing this problem,” he fumed.
The Government recently announced it was consulting on a new employers’ levy to help pay for apprenticeships as well as setting up new “Trailblazer” schemes where employers work to set their own standards.
A Business Department spokesman insisted: “Our employer-led reforms will continue to make sure apprenticeships provide the skills needed to grow our economy, whether in science, business or engineering.
“Engineering and manufacturing is the third-most popular subject for an apprenticeship, and the Trailblazer programme gives young people the chance to ply their trade in sectors as diverse as fashion, banking, law and nuclear fusion.”

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tory-apprenticeship-target-forces-hundreds-6357531


Absolutely agree with apprenticeships and if you are going to learn something that is going to give you skills and qualifications and a start in life it is worth being on shit money for a time.  But most of these are not 'apprenticeships' by any stretch of the imagination, they are cheap labour, another way for conservative mates to make money of the back of other people.