Restrictive model So, how has a largely restrictive model of apprenticeship come to dominate the landscape? There are three interrelated reasons. The first lies in the largely unregulated nature of occupations in England (and the UK more broadly), but it is the other two reasons that concern us here: first, the use of competence-based qualifications as the mandatory output from all government- funded training programmes since the1980s; and, second, the obsession of successive governments with increasing the stocks of qualifications in the workforce. Central to the competence-based approach is the separation of the process of training (and acquisition of vocational knowledge) from the assessment of competence. Advocates of this approach, including some adult educationalists and trades unions, argued that it would enable adult workers who had not had the opportunity to gain qualifications to get recognition for their expertise. The competence-based model remains
contested in the academic literature more than 20 years after NVQs were first introduced. However, there is some evidence, including from our own research on the automotive- component manufacturing sector, that the approach can be beneficial to organisations and individuals. Our 2008 study led us to conclude that the ambiguities inherent in the NVQ model create tensions and opportunities for ‘restrictive’ as well as ‘expansive’ forms of implementation. The key point we want to make here – one we will return to later in this article – is that adults want qualifications to provide access to new learning rather than simply accreditation of what they already know.
Competence-based legacy The competence-based legacy, combined with the minimalist standards enshrined in the Specification of Apprenticeship Standards in England, help explain why two-thirds of adult apprenticeships in England are at Level 2 and why so many can be classed as conversions. It also helps explain why service-sector apprenticeships dominate the apprenticeship statistics. The top three ‘sector frameworks’ for apprentice starts in 2010–11 accounted for about a third of all starts registered in the 170-plus apprenticeship frameworks that are available. In descending order these are: Customer Service (53,970 starts), Health and Social Care (53,720) and Retail (41,410) (see Table 1 for a list of the top sectors). Currently, many apprenticeships at Level 2 are linked solely to the accreditation of the competencies needed to perform workplace tasks in specific job roles, as well as narrowly defined functional skills. Such provision simply mirrors the limited learning requirements of low-level jobs, and leaves the government’s scheme open to the criticism that it is reproducing low-level skills as well as funding ‘deadweight’ provision. Whilst the headline statistics on apprenticeship generally categorise participants in three age bands, 16–18, 19–24 and 25-plus, figures are also available on starts across the age scale. Digging further into the 25 and over age group, we find that about this phenomenon broadly coincides with the decision of the last Labour government in 2004 to fund apprenticeships for the 25-plus age group. The official statistics show that by 2007–08 there were just over 27,000 starts in the older age group. The most recent full-year figures (2010–11) show that the number of 25- plus starts had grown six-fold to 180,000. Much of the recent increase can be explained by the rebranding of employees on Train to Gain as apprentices when the former scheme was withdrawn by the coalition government.
Table 1: Most populated apprenticeship sectors in England 2010–11
Source: Data Service Sector Customer Service
Health and Social Care Retail
Business Administration Hospitality and Catering Management
Children’s Care, Learning and Development Engineering
Active Leisure and Learning Hairdressing Construction
IT and Telecoms Professionals Vehicle Maintenance and Repair
Total Starts 53,970
53,720 41,410 38,900 29,810 29,790 27,410 18,330 17,650 16,450 15,590 12,030 9,060
10 ADULTS LEARNING SPRING 2012
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