Institute for Apprenticeships – Draft Strategy – get your response in

The closing date for comments on the draft strategy is 31 January. Whether you support the move to establish the IfA, or not what they appear to have been given to deliver against seems something of a poison chalice.

The consultation document is peppered with the IfA having responsibility for ‘quality’ on this or that…whether improving quality of apprenticeships, setting quality criteria for developing apprenticeship standards, quality assuring end-point assessments, supporting plans for good quality standards, proposing the key quality criteria for the Register of Apprenticeship Training Organisations; ensuring the overall integrity and quality of the system. It sounds like a lot of responsibility. Working in Awarding Organisations (AOs) we know that what quality looks like can vary so much and is often hard to specify. 

The strategy also says the IfA will have a responsibility to deliver 3 million apprenticeships by 2020; embrace a wider remit for technical education from April 2018; have oversight and set the parameters for the SFA to manage the operational delivery of certificates for standards; advise and assist on apprenticeship funding, including advice on funding bands; have a process for reviewing standards; assume the leadership role amongst all the partner organisations including Ofsted, Ofqual, HEFCE and QAA, also working with the devolved administrations; and of course reporting to the Secretary of State on how its carried out its core functions, their success criteria and progress. 

All of that should take until Thursday of week one, or maybe a bit longer - I can only find irony to respond here, since the challenges for the IfA seem immense and with a planned staff of 60 in April, rising to 90, for all this? Getting the right expertise from the off, to make a head start on all that is required will also require some very effective recruitment. Getting good and the right people can take time too, as we know.

For me there has been insufficient preparation and consideration to enable the IfA to have a sound start and ability to succeed on every front. It’s important that AOs voice their concerns, support or otherwise on the draft strategic guidance and what is expected. A couple of paragraphs is better than nothing, and shows as an AO you are engaged in the debate of what is planned for apprenticeships and technical education.

Find the consultation paper here 

Heather Venis

Principal, Awarding First

Heather@awardingfirst.co.uk

Next blog post will be 2 February 2017