With the CBI setting out the next steps for apprenticeship reform, we spoke to businesses about their experiences of the current system.
Apprenticeships are a great route to the high-skilled, high-paid jobs that fit firms’ needs now and in the future. But since the introduction of the Apprenticeship Levy in April 2017, progress towards this goal has stuttered. To its credit, the government is listening to businesses’ calls for continued reform. So what happens next?
In the first of a series of apprenticeship reports this year, the CBI has focused on the infrastructure that should be helping to deliver better quality technical qualifications and better supporting firms to offer new routes into, and progression in, the workplace.
Its main message is that the government must give the Institute of Apprenticeships (IfA) the independence and clout it needs to reform and regulate the English skills system – with the power to set it owns success criteria for technical education and report back to ministers.
The IfA was set up in early 2017 to give businesses more of a voice in sk