Employers to mould apprentice schemes

Contractors now have no excuse not to improve and increase their apprenticeship schemes and address the skills crisis, according to education minister Ivan Lewis.

Talking to CJ at the launch of the government's White Paper, 21st Century Skills - Realising our Potential, Lewis said that claims by the industry that apprenticeship schemes are misguided and non-productive are no longer valid.

"Contractors shouldn't just bemoan the skills shortage, they need to do something and have more say in how apprenticeships can work for them," he said.

"The launch of this framework document means that employers will have more involvement in the design and delivery of modern apprenticeships. They can mould them into how they want them to work and can set out how to assess them more thoroughly."

Contractors will be expected to approach their regional Sector Skills Councils with ideas on how to improve and increase their apprenticeship drives.

This will be done with the help of a new Skills Alliance consisting of the Confederation of British Industry, the Trades Union Congress and the Small Business Council.

The Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) has developed one of the first sector skills agreements to help lead an improvement programme of targeting more employer-funded training, with funds of £400m.

This will be headed by the newly-formed National Construction Forum, which will be represented by employers, the CITB, the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) and Learning Skills Councils. A draft agreement is due in December.

Progress will be assessed at regular meetings of a Westminster-based skills committee, which will act as a hub for all the regional councils.

The age cap for modern apprentices has also been raised from 24 years of age to 25 in a radical step to give the industry instant access to a pool of older workers.

There are 234,000 young people signed up to modern apprenticeships across all industries, but the government plans to increase this by 28% by 2004. About 30,000 young people start apprenticeships each year through non-CITB routes, for example by hearing about a career in construction via the CITB, but then contacting a college/employer on their own.

Recent DfES figures rank construction as the highest sector for skills shortage vacancies (1.7% as a proportion of employment). This is well down on sectors such as public administration (0.4%).

Construction also has the worst percentage (18%) of workers receiving training during the last 13 weeks compared with the health sector (45%).

Funding from companies towards training over the last year ranks close to the bottom (31%) compared with the education sector (81%).