My Lords, when I look at the apprenticeship system and the newly created apprenticeships, it is quite clear that there is a degree of fear within the system that the exam will not be taken seriously. This means that various standards have been clung to, particularly in English and maths, so that the apprenticeship will be as good as something else. This is quite clearly inappropriate if you do not take other steps for groups which have struggled in the traditional sector. Dyslexia was a classic example. As I dug into it, it became almost farcical. People were saying, “Employers like it”. Then you had employers saying that yes, they wanted functional skills so that people could do the job, not a qualification. That was said to me more than once. A degree of paranoia was building up because people were not saying, “This is a test that allows you to do a job”.
The groups mentioned here are always going to struggle. If you do not want them in the apprenticeship system, it is about time somebody turned round and said, “It’s not for you”, and provided something else for them. I do so hope that that will not be the case, because it means creating an entire new examination and qualification system. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us that the Government are taking practical steps to allow people in.
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The example I mentioned initially turned out to be simply allowing in principle to make the software technology that was used elsewhere in education available for the examination. It was then discovered that that was impossible because the format online was wrong and had not been adapted. It was that ridiculous, but the resistance was real. Unless you have someone who is prepared to bring people into the system, you will always exclude. If apprenticeships are to be the gold standard for further education, you will exclude larger and larger groups.
We thus have a dichotomy with the aims and objectives of large parts of the further education sector. It is less than a year since we passed a major piece of legislation
that said that you should allow people to continue training until the age of 25 because they have disabilities, but we exclude them from the main qualification they are going for. There is a real problem here. It should not be beyond the wit of man to start to square that circle, but unless action is taken and a path for further action is identified, I fear that we will go around this course again and again.