Only 2% of apprentices new staff
Posted on | May 18, 2009 |
Only 30 of the 1,395 apprentices on a public sector training scheme were new employees, the government has revealed.
England’s Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills says ministers’ priority is for public sector apprenticeships to go to new recruits.
But 98% of those on the Government Skills National Apprenticeship Pathfinder Scheme in 2008-09 were already in the civil service.
A Tory spokesman said re-labelling existing training helped no-one.
David Willetts, the shadow innovation, universities and skills secretary, obtained the figures in a parliamentary written answer.
Further Education Minister Sion Simon told him: “It is a standard route for apprentices to be in a job before they begin their apprenticeship, in both the public and private sector.”
But Mr Willetts said the figures cast grave doubts on the government’s ability to deliver on its promise to increase the number of public sector apprentices.
“Ministers are so concerned with chasing headlines that they seem to have simply renamed existing trainees,” he said.
“As the recession bites, it is more important than ever to create new training opportunities.
“Ministers re-labelling workplace training as apprenticeships in order to meet targets helps no-one.”
‘Great success’
A spokesman for the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills said it had rescued and expanded the apprenticeship programme by trebling the number of starts from a low of 65,000 in 1996-97 to 224,800 in 2007-08.
“All these are new training opportunities.”
The expansion of civil service apprenticeships had been “a great success” in proving that apprenticeships worked in organisations which had never previously used them, he added.
“The initial scheme did not require apprentices to be new employees, but we have been very clear that the priority for public sector apprenticeships is to offer training to new employees.”
Too few teenagers in England are starting apprenticeships, partly because of poor careers guidance, a recent report by the Skills Commission said.
This article is from the BBC News Website
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