Edge continues to promote apprenticeships at every opportunity. At our panel event at this year’s Labour Party Conference with LabourList, Edge Chief Executive Alice Gardner spoke about the campaign and the importance of engaging SMEs to achieve national economic growth.
There was strong support from the rest of the panel, with Helen Hayes MP highlighting that it echoes the findings of the Education Committee’s recent report of FE and Skills, while Association of Colleges President, Pat Carvalho and Liverpool FC Foundation CEO, Matt Parish, shared the important role that FE colleges and regional networks can play in supporting SMEs (both explored in our Agents of Change report). There were so many other fantastic events from partners at Conference where this issue came up, including the St Martin’s Group panel on understanding employers’ needs in the skills system and Skills for Success, with panellists including Baroness Smith and Sian Ellliot, Director of Organising at the TUC, who spoke firmly in favour of simplifying the application system for apprenticeships. Edge outlines similar proposals in our Chaos to Coordination report.
And in surprising but welcome news, the Prime Minister also announced a new ambition to have two-thirds of young people participating in either a “gold standard” apprenticeship or at university by age 25 (replacing the 50% in university target which he said was not “right for our times”). We are pleased to see government recognising the value of apprenticeships and other technical routes alongside university. However, as Edge warns in our response to the announcement, the Government will need to ensure there is a sufficient supply of apprenticeships to achieve this target, which must mean engaging SMEs.