My social feeds were made up by two main stories this Monday just gone:
- The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report on the impact of global warming of 1.5C (BBC News Article)
- UK Government report on Apprenticeship quality.
The impact of climate is around us all to see, from the increasingly dry summers in Britain, northern european forest fires, Californian droughts, etc. A Guardian article in response to the climate issues, “Overwhelmed by climate change? Here’s what you can do“, hints at the fact we can feel lost in the face of such disastrous change. It is easy to feel this way, however, I’ve recently finished reading Abundance (‘The Future is Better Than You Think’) and perhaps we need to get the good stories out there more effectively? One of the items on the Guardian list is ‘vote’ and we all need to take a collective responsibility to force politicians to include massive change (or at least roll back support for coal as in Australia) in their agendas.
Apprenticeships as a route to tackle sustainability
Apprenticeships are an opportunity here – sustainability is a considerable part of modern learning programmes (such as Design, Engineer, Construct) and needs to be embedded throughout apprenticeships. Indeed apprenticeships’ “British values” need to be revised to be inclusive of global warming policy and commitment to change. Unfortunately this is difficult and probably of limited impact considering Apprenticeship standards are restricted to England (not the whole UK) and launched at a time when the UK, via Brexit and financial limitations, is falling backwards on the world stage.
So, in our organisations what can we do? There have been some good examples, for example when I was at KPMG there was a start to a, since complete, cull on plastic. Otherwise will climate become a consulting issue, similar to Y2K or GDPR? Personally I feel this needs to become embedded in everything we do, it needs to be a cultural piece in the same way we expect continuous learning, demonstration of values (generally in the “don’t be a dick” category),etc.. Thus we need to take on the personal responsibility for ‘greening’ our business and lives in the same way that since the ’50s we have seen a change in mentality around diversity and inclusion.
L&D departments can play an essential part here in getting people to think differently and embed innovation around energy efficiency and other potential improvements.
Ensuring apprenticeship quality
The quality criticisms are curious given the shift to ’employer led’ apprenticeships should have employers ensure quality, rather than it remaining a central government concern. This is really account management on the employer side, tracking appropriate feedback scores and outcomes metrics to get an holistic view of the apprentice. That so many problems have occured suggests a more systemic issue, most likely down to issues such as the enforcing of the ‘20%’ as a metric based on quantity not quality.
The bigger issue seems to be financial sustainability of apprenticeships – with FE underfunded and apparently short term seeking of quick wins in the private space (the report’s “explosion in the number of training providers”), contributing to collapse/sale of key players, eg:
Like Y2K, GDPR and other temporary buzz terms the levy-led “explosion” does not seem to be helping. Employer providers may be the solution here but requires investment from the same companies that have criticised the levy since launch.
There increasingly feels like there needs to be an ‘all-in’ approach. Drop ‘T-Levels’ and other routes to simplify the model – have apprenticeship versus full-time degree. Just look at teaching for the confusing variety of routes into the professions. There are good ideas in the report (such as “abolishing the apprentice minimum wage”) but again it comes back to employers, or it should in the Standards environment. Can any employer realistically pay the apprentice minimum wage and look themselves in the mirror? For a full-time role I’d suggest not, for someone who is perhaps working 50% of an FTE then maybe, I think my first role was £1.17 an hour before any kind of minimum wage and that was okay as a Saturday job in being a first step on the ladder towards some kind of experience. Eventually I was offered the management training programme by that employer (a now defunct supermarket) but opted for university instead.
The proposed kite system for good employers (in the government statement) is more challenging, it sounds like a good idea but will no doubt add to the noise that exists around the multiple ’employer of choice’ type awards out there. Instead, in the same way providers can be rated by employers – let providers and apprentices rate employers in an open way via the ‘Find an apprenticeship’ site or other route.
Whose Education Is It Anyway? 