Received from: College of Podiatry, SoR, UCU
Motion 03 and amendments
Congress believes apprenticeships are a distinctive and highly valuable part of the vocational education sector, ensuring that those who want to earn while they learn have the opportunity to do so. They provide an important route to employment and higher levels of learning, directly connecting people to the labour market and contributing to an educated, productive, innovative and engaged workforce and citizenry.
Congress notes its concern that the drive to grow apprenticeships has too often been at the expense of quality and genuine job creation. The central importance of education within apprenticeship programmes is not recognised. Apprenticeships are not just about training for tasks or for specific job roles; they should include a broad education which prepares people for the changing world of work and empowers them to be engaged, adaptable and resilient.
Congress believes the apprenticeship levy, while providing a funding boost
for apprenticeships directly from employers, does little to influence where
apprenticeship opportunities are, what level they are at, or who can access them.
It has been too easy for levy-paying employers to recoup their payments by
rebadging existing training schemes as apprenticeships.
Congress also notes that established education providers are disincentivised from offering degree-level apprenticeships due to low-level funding by the Institute for Apprenticeships. This has left certain job roles without the apprenticeship route, or the qualification has been diluted by employers, at a detriment to degree-level professions.
Congress welcomes and adopts the work of UCU in their Charter for Real Jobs
and Apprenticeships and asks the General Council to support campaigns that
deliver an expansion of high-quality apprenticeships. These must have education at their heart, relate to real job opportunities, receive a proper living apprenticeship wage and get to the root of tackling inequality in access to education and the labour market.
Mover: University and College Union
Seconder: Society of Radiographers
Supporter: College of Podiatry