Apprentices

(asked on 13th March 2024) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policies of trends in the number of apprenticeship completions.


Answered by
Robert Halfon Portrait
Robert Halfon
This question was answered on 21st March 2024

Since 2015 the department has transformed apprenticeships so that they are higher quality and better meet the needs of employers and individuals. The department has replaced apprenticeship frameworks with employer-designed apprenticeship standards which are more robust and harder to achieve, and raised the bar on duration, time to learn off the job and quality of assessment.

It is important that every apprentice gets the maximum value from their apprenticeship. and the department has focused its efforts on supporting apprentices to stay on their programme and achieve. The department is investing £7.5 million in a workforce development programme for teachers and trainers of apprentices. In addition, the department has increased the apprenticeship funding rate for English and mathematics by 54%, providing targeted support to employers and Ofsted are inspecting all apprenticeship providers by 2025.

The department is now seeing the positive impact of these actions. There were 162,320 achievements reported for the 2022/23 academic year, which represent the highest number since 2018/19, up 18.3% compared to the 2021/22 academic year. Furthermore, 37,400 people have achieved their apprenticeship so far this academic year, up by 22% compared to the same period last year.

On 21 March, the department will be publishing the apprenticeship national achievement rates for 2022/23 academic year as well as the latest data on the number of achievements so far this year. This will be accessible through the apprenticeships statistical publication found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/apprenticeships.

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