Improving people’s experience of work has always been at the heart of the Labour party’s mission. From the early days of the trade union movement through to the equality legislation of the 1970s and the minimum wage in 1999 we have always sought to protect and empower people at work. Today, investing in people’s skills, through a massive expansion in apprenticeships, follows in that tradition.
In 2008, around half of those without basic skills are unemployed or economically inactive. The first challenge, then, is to equip people with the skills that they need to fulfil their potential and find work. Nationally, there are six hundred thousand vacancies in the economy, so there is huge opportunity. But more than this, skills can be a driver of wider social progress. In particular, apprenticeships can improve the quality of people’s working lives and support their personal development.
Why are apprenticeships special and how can they achieve these things? The secret is in the learning experience that they offer. Because an apprenticeship is more than a means of picking up specialist skills to be deployed in a workplace, important though that is. Apprenticeships are also an opportunity for young people to learn from those who have something to pass on. In a world of counter-cultures and peer-to-peer contact, they restore some of the relationships between generations that can easily be lost.
And through forging these relationships between youth and experience, employer and employee, apprenticeships can help build confidence, aspiration and esteem. They can help young people feel valued and supported in a way that too many young people never experience. To me it comes as no coincidence that some of the country’s best role models – from David Beckham to Jamie Oliver – were once apprentices. They were born with talent, but were able benefit from the structure, routine and support that that comes with the apprenticeship route.
This huge value – personal, social and economic – lies behind our ambitions for apprenticeships over the coming years. In the last 10 years, apprenticeship places have risen from 75,000 to nearly 240,000. Our aim is that one-in-five young people should be on apprenticeships within 10 years. And we will do more to improve quality – creating a national apprenticeships service, doing more to support employers financially and by challenging the public sector to raise its game. In London, we will redress the historic apprenticeships deficit.
The challenges of globalisation are now well-documented – and the role of skills in achieving full employment is rightly becoming a matter of consensus. Apprenticeships are a vital part of that, but we should also support them because they do so much more. The best apprenticeships help build a good society as well as a strong economy.
The State of the Nations Charities: We need Apprenticeship schemes across the Third Sector
At last a Minister has talked about hope and the right to hope when attempting to persuade us that apprenticeships should and can be a crucial part of skilling our young people.
I applaud those companies who have enthusiastically embraced Apprenticeships – not-with-standing some of the disgracefully low wages being paid to our young people, at least these companies are attempting to offer young people a development and training structure, something to aim for, a sense of being invested in, listened to and not ignored. Their talents nurtured by their employer, their potential acknowledged and believed in.
Having worked with thousands of young people over the last decade I can absolutely guarantee such investment breeds hope, hope builds confidence, confidence in turn motivates and strengthens the possibility of meeting your potential.
I only wish when announcing an expansion and re-work of the scheme Ministers had focused on hope, aspiration, of rights and responsibilities and opportunity, of offering young people the hope of emerging out of the mist of negativity and hopelessness, and not focused on the rhetoric of up-skilling and meeting the challenges of globalisation. Radical would be talking directly to the young people of this country (on YouTube or Bebo, because that is where you will find them) explaining with gusto and zeal why Apprenticeships could work for them. Why seeking out an Apprenticeship will perhaps, with some hard work and the support of their employer give them the respect and opportunity they deserve. Instead the Government chatted dryly about the global skills race and India giving us a run for our money, the press and media thought them-selves highly original when they derided the McJob!
I would also argue Ministers are missing a trick. Beatbullying has four Apprentices. We are a charity, so of course we can’t afford them, (it is a choice), no one will fund them and there is no Third Sector blue print for a scheme. We have had to write our own. Yet every time we recruit we are overwhelmed with applications. We have Apprentices because we have a responsibility to at least try to beckon a young person through that mist of hopelessness. They are trained, developed, mentored, inspired, challenged, allowed to make mistakes and yes given a bit more rope because we were seventeen once. Our young apprentices, all of whom others may label as disengaged, non academic, disadvantaged or just plain bad are excelling, they have money in their pocket, a plan for the future and route to some respect and hope. For one especially and I say this with their permission, they expected prison, they now expect a fulfilling and “sick” career in the sector.
There are 250,000 charities in this country probably 25,000 should and can afford to run Apprenticeship schemes. The bigger charities should have an Apprentice in every department.
The public and private sector up to a point are meeting the challenge of delivering hope and yes skills to our young people, why not the Third Sector? Surely apprentices would have natural homes at the NSPCC, the Teenage Cancer or Shelter? Seems though, it hasn’t crossed anyone’s mind.
Together the Third Sector is a huge employer, we turn over billions, we innovate and we continually move the social fabric of this country forward… we should be leading UK Apprenticeship schemes and together with other sectors taking our share of the burden and the responsibility, instead we are know where to be seen.
Ministers, talk to us, well managed with a bit co-operation, the Third Sector can and should be ensuring this country meet the challenge of giving our young people skills and hope in our workplaces and not just as service users. We need a blue print and a place at the table.
Emma-Jane Cross
Chief Executive
Beatbullying