MP Hayes Praises ‘Innovative and Exciting’ IMPACT Apprenticeships

Minister of State for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning John Hayes dubbed IMPACT Apprenticeships ‘innovative and exciting’ at their Loughborough College launch last week.

The Apprenticeship Employment and Training Agency is a joint venture supported by the College and Australia’s leading apprenticeships provider MEGT.

Mr Hayes was one of a number of special guests in attendance at the launch including MEGT CEO David Windridge, Martin Traynor from the Leicester Chamber of Commerce and IMPACT Apprenticeships chairman John Smith OBE.

Speaking at the event, he said: “The combination of the experience of MEGT Australia and the established work of this more than 100 year old college is very exciting.

“In Australia, MEGT are by far the biggest apprenticeship provider. The numbers are quite staggering.

“What this speaks of in terms of that blend of experience is of course impressive, but what it also speaks of is the importance of the concept of an Apprenticeship Training Agency.

“I came to the conclusion very early that the way we would seed apprenticeships across the whole country and every community was through GTAs (Group Training Associations) and ATAs.

“This allows the reach of apprenticeships to go beyond where they have been historically.

“The focus on apprenticeships which MEGT will provide is incredibly important. It is the marriage, the collaboration, the fusion of this college and MEGT that I believe that we can allow the effectiveness of apprenticeships in delivering job-related skills to take us even further than we have travelled already.

“The message I have delivered here is one of absolute confidence in the work of our FE sector, one of real admiration the collaboration you have formed.

“I think it is innovative and exciting and I think it is going to be immensely invaluable to learners, to employers, to our country, to our economy, and to our culture.”

The Minister also talked about the government’s focus on apprenticeships and their value to businesses and learners.

“People say to me, why apprenticeships?” he said, “And I say to them because they are valued by learners, they’re understood by employers, they are a brand which has resonance with the wider community.

“They confirm competencies which are measurable, which add to employability, which feed economic purpose, which allow people to be the best they can be, which deliver a sense of worth and prowess through their acquisition.

“We have as a government made an unabridged, unremitting, unparalleled commitment to apprenticeships.

“Our commitment approach in terms of scale and scope and pace is absolutely unparalleled and unprecedented.

“We have delivered the greatest growth of apprenticeship numbers in the last year ever seen in modern history, we will build more apprenticeships in Britain than we have ever had in the whole of our history.

“The growth is across all ages, it’s across all sectors and it’s all levels. Every part of the country has seen more apprenticeships.”

“We are using apprenticeships both as a route to higher learning with the Level 4 apprenticeships – there are now 2000 plus Level 4 apprenticeships, bearing in mind there were only 200 in 2008-09.

“We will develop Level 5 and Level 6 and I intend to develop a new category called ‘Master Apprenticeships’ at that level.

“We will use apprenticeships as a means of upskilling and reskilling the existing workforce and of course what they have always been, which is a route into employment for those with technical tastes and talents as well as a route for those moving from disengagement to engagement through our access to apprenticeship work.

“We have apprenticeships filling a much bigger space than they ever have before, we’ve made them the pivot of the skills system and that’s why I’m so pleased to be here to support this important initiative.”