Employers in England's fashion and textiles sector are claiming that the recent government commitment to spend more on apprenticeships will mean little, unless Ministers do more to address the apparent "ageist" approach to skills support.
Skills Secretary, John Denham, announced the creation of 150,000 new apprenticeships on 16 November. He also pledged to extend funding support to apprentices aged 25 or older - at a significantly lower level to the support available for employees under the age of 19.
Skill fast-UK, the Sector Skills Council for fashion and textiles - and the voice of more than 40,000 of the sector's employers on skills issues - is arguing that this is a "missed opportunity" to address imbalances in public support for skills and training.
Linda Florence, chief executive of Skillfast-UK, says: "Around 70 per cent of people, who will be in the fashion and textiles industry in 2020, are already in the workforce now. If we want to make a real difference to productivity in this country, we need to develop the skills of current employees - and that means helping older workers. These new announcements are puzzling because they acknowledge the need to train older workers - yet offer a far lower level of support compared with school leavers. Many employers feel that this is little short of ageism, and it does little to encourage the bulk of employers to invest more in skills and qualifications through apprenticeships."
Research by Skillfast-UK shows that there are very few apprenticeship schemes under way in the fashion and textiles sector, with just 56 apprentices registered on six schemes since September 2006. According to Linda Florence, this low take-up is indicative of a lack of flexibility in the Government's approach to apprenticeships, which will not be solved simply by creating more places.
She explains, "150,000 more places sounds good on paper, but how much difference can it really make to our sector's employers, when local colleges simply can't afford to run expensive, technically-relevant apprenticeship schemes for relatively small numbers of people? Government needs to think wider, and give more support to employers to develop "in-company" apprenticeship schemes. Using in-house experts to train and assess an apprentice, is often far more preferable to sending employees off to a college, where equipment and practices often lag behind current industry norms.
"Without investment in this greater flexibility, it will be difficult to involve smaller businesses in the apprenticeship programme - especially in those industries, like our own, which do not have a strong tradition of apprenticeships. Whilst additional support for skills is always welcome, it is disappointing that these government announcements have not gone as far as they should to address the real issues our employers face."
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