My Lords, I too welcome the Government’s commitment to education. In a report, The Queen’s Speech 2019, the Prime Minister says:
“we are going to level up with better education, better infrastructure and better technology. It is my abiding and unshakeable conviction that talent and genius are uniformly distributed in our country, but opportunity is not.”
I think that is a good summary of where we are now.
I will focus on apprenticeships, which will be a surprise to noble Lords. I declare an interest, because I am an apprenticeship ambassador. My starting point is to support the Government’s approach to apprenticeships. The Government recognise the importance of vocational education and, somewhat ambitiously, set a target of
3 million apprenticeships. Many noble friends warned the Government that the emphasis should be on quality and the need to convince parents, teachers and pupils that apprenticeships are a valid and quality alternative career path to university. They have a number of benefits, but “earn while you learn” is probably as good as any.
Therefore, I was somewhat concerned to read an article in the Times on 3 January headed “Fake apprentices exploit £3bn levy”, based on a report by an education and skills think tank. I do not agree with every bit of the article. It is critical of the fact that a significant number of apprenticeships are in middle management—supervisors and so on—but, given that for many years the Chartered Management Institute has said to us that one of the limitations on improving productivity is that only one in five managers is trained, that does not seem a bad use of apprenticeships. The article also seems to dislike degree apprenticeships but, again, I do not agree with that. However, it makes a worrying point about the quality of some apprenticeships. I think that it is focusing on levels 2 and 3, and I have some worries there. Although the DfE says, “It can’t be an apprenticeship unless it meets our standards”, that does not mean that that is what is taking place at ground level.
Another worry concerning the apprenticeship levy is that the number of starts in the 16 to 18 age group has fallen. Levels 2 and 3 apprenticeships are important. Not every child suits the academic approach. Surely we have to guard against increasing the number of NEETs—that is, young people not in education, employment or training—so we should not underestimate the importance of those apprenticeships.
The apprenticeship levy is a bit like the curate’s egg—it is good in parts—but we have to be careful that we do not throw the baby out with the bath water. However, it needs reform and it was supposed to have a review. I would welcome it if the Minister could give us the timescale for the reforms and review. It could probably do with involving more employers than is currently the case.
The average take-up of the apprenticeship levy is only 15% and it is seen somewhat negatively by some employers as an employee tax. We need to do something about that. We need more SME non-levy pay involvement. Employers have the ability to transfer 25% of their levy to SMEs, but we need other ideas to ensure that more SMEs employ apprentices. We will not hit anywhere near the target by relying on large employers.
The good news in the Queen’s Speech was the announcement of a national skills fund. There will be £3 billion over five years and another £2 billion to be spent on improving the estate, which I presume is on top of the levy. I would be interested to know exactly what will happen with the skills fund. I understand that there will be some consultation.
Many things need to be clarified in relation to vocational education. Another new qualification—the T-level—is being introduced but it is perhaps not getting the best reception at the moment.
There are a couple of points that I would like to end on. One is the question of student loans. Do we really believe that we are getting the best value for money
from them? Billions of pounds a year go into student loans but some of the degrees are, quite frankly, hardly worth the paper they are written on. That is not to denigrate higher education, because there is a lot of good-quality higher education. However, are we really spending the money effectively? Could we have more two-year degrees? I think that we could. However, if I had to focus money on one area of education, it would be on early years learning. We know that, if we do not get it right there, that is where the trouble starts.
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