Many are supportive of the drive to encourage the take-up of vocational qualifications, such as apprenticeships. What needs to change for apprenticeship drop-out rates to reduce?
Apprenticeships can indeed have high drop-out rates. This is partly because recruits, especially younger ones, may find the combination of work and education onerous. They will need to demonstrate that they have reached specific educational levels in English and Maths to complete the apprenticeship if they did not have them when they started.
Additionally, an apprenticeship depends on an offer of employment, and company circumstances may change, leading them to unfortunately shed workers. One way forward could be subjecting apprenticeships to the same kind of detailed scrutiny of performance, employer by employer, that university courses undergo. This would better inform recruits about potential risks they may face.
What steps should be taken to address the negative perceptions that persist among young people and their parents surrounding vocational qualifications compared to traditional academic routes?
I'm not entirely sure there are such negative perceptions of vocational courses. Polling shows that apprenticeships are popular, and politicians and the media often advocate them as a better option than attending university.
However, there is a specific barrier related to gender stereotypes associated with certain apprenticeships. Currently, I am co-chairing an inquiry for Engineering UK on apprenticeships along with Labour peer Jim Knight. We are exploring ways to break down such stereotypes.
The primary constraint on apprenticeships is not so much demand from students but rather supply from employers. Apprenticeships can be quite extensive and are funded through the Apprenticeship Levy, which places limits on available funds. Moreover, industries and trades are not evenly distributed across the country, making access difficult. Unlike residential universities, where students can live away from home, there are few residential apprenticeships, and there's reluctance to finance them through a maintenance loan scheme similar to that for university students. The "no debt" characteristic has become a crucial aspect of the apprenticeship offer, which inevitably restricts access and enrolment numbers.
Why has it taken so long for the government to take the measures it has regarding poor-performing university degrees given that the data recommendations have been based upon have been known for some time?
I fought a lengthy battle during my time as Universities Minister to persuade HMRC to provide this information to researchers. This data relies on tax data for earnings, requiring strict confidentiality and anonymity.
It became accessible a few years ago.
The Office for Students (OfS) already possesses the authority to act based on this data and strives to do so. However, caution must be exercised in interpreting the data. The OfS needs to ensure that it isn't unfairly targeting providers due to the types of students they enrol. Courses at universities with a significant skew towards more privileged students are likely to perform well on various performance metrics due to the advantages these students already possess.
Moreover, placing too much emphasis on outcomes just 15 months after completing a degree might not account for the longer, gradual career progression that many graduates experience, especially compared to job-specific training like apprenticeships that can lead to quicker entry into certain career plateaus.
Should the review of poor-performing degrees be carried out regularly and can those degrees not meeting the threshold face similar caps on funding?
There are several ways to address poorly-performing degrees. The OfS has various intervention methods, including requesting universities to improve employment outcomes for specific courses or suggesting the discontinuation of those courses. However, determining what constitutes poor performance is a subject of debate.
Measures of teaching excellence already exist, and in other educational stages teaching quality is a primary performance measure. Yet, in higher education, a course might score well on the teaching excellence framework but poorly on labour market outcomes.