'Tories would swap 'rip-off' degrees for apprenticeships' - rather like their national service fagpacketry, there is a germ of a good idea here but they can't be bothered to do the work and are going for the soundbite. University education needs a general review but it should be about fitting it into an overall strategy not this which looks like a mess.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clmmry99y4po
What they have failed to mention is that the current apprenticeship levy that companies pay is woefully underutilised to provide apprentice training. So recently there was around £3B in unspent levy available to fund more apprenticeships. So it is disingenuous in the extreme to imply that money needs to be diverted from University funding (I'll come back to that later) to fund more apprenticeships. The money is already there.
I have a very strong professional interest in this area and the reasons why companies don't take on more apprentices is because they need a business reason so to do as, although the training costs are covered by the levy, they are employees and there wages need to be covered by the company. No company will take on more staff, particularly in the current economic environment, unless they need to do so.
There is another problem - the current apprenticeship system is very inflexible and bureaucratic - it takes years to get a new apprenticeship scheme approved and typically this is very rigid so doesn't provide the nimble and flexible approach companies need in a fast changing world to upskill and reskill their workforces. I have been in many meetings with various Education ministers over the past 5 years or so making these very points (along with industry leaders making the same points). But they have fallen on deaf ears.
Back to university funding - the government does not fund the fees - these are covered by student loans so I'm struggling to understand how the government can divert student loan money to apprenticeships (which are not funded via that route).
