Failed apprenticeships
April 27th, 2009 at 9:30 am by David FarrarThe former Government used to bang on all the time about apprenticeships. So I was interested to read:
A $250 million Government job scheme is in line for a shake-up after a report showing that fewer than one in 10 agriculture, forestry and fishing apprentices completes training within five years.
Fewer than one in ten???
Education Minister Anne Tolley is unhappy with the findings of a Ministry of Education report, Modern Apprentices Completion Analysis, and is seeking advice on the scheme’s future. The report reveals just one-third of all modern apprentices complete their training within five years.
Slightly better over all industries, but still a clear failure.
I’ve often noticed that Labour deems something sucessful based on how much money they spend on it. They see spending taxpayer money as inherently good, so the more money you spend, the more good you are doing.
Hopefully National will be more focused on actual outcomes.
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April 27th, 2009 at 10:27 am
I prefer results rather than outcomes. ‘Outcome’ is politico speak designed to take the edge off failure. It is closely related to ‘going forward’ which also is politico speak for ‘we haven’t got a fucking clue where we are going but , by God, we are focused on going there.
Vote:April 27th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Well said Adolf.
Didn’t National get elected to make changes – this is one of those areas
where Labour’s failures was so cleverly hidden.
DPF – ‘hopefully’ is not enough. Surely ‘expecting’, maybe even ‘demanding’
Vote:would be more appropriate language.
April 27th, 2009 at 10:52 am
Totally agree DPF — whether we use the word “outcomes” or “results” — we want results rather than just spending government money, which in reality is taxpayers money.
My understanding is that some young people go on training schemes, such as forestry, get kitted out with expensive protective gear, but have no intention of completing the training. They then go on another course and basically spend their time floating from course to course — not really learning much and with no adverse consequences.
We want real apprenticeships, with real outcomes and real consequences if people drop out. At present there are a number of teenagers in our small town who do seem to be drifting along and somehow claiming benefits. Interspersed with their time on benefits they go on training courses at which they learn little.
I think a shakeup of the benefit system is also overdue. If getting the unemployment benefit is harder, then young people particularly will have more incentive to complete their training and go on to do useful work.
A shakeup of the whole system is overdue in my opinion. Particularly in these difficult economic times, when taxpayers cannot afford to fund unproductive training and apprenticeship schemes.
Vote:April 27th, 2009 at 10:58 am
Outside of amenity horticulture (i.e. greenkeeping and council gardens) there has never been a history of apprenticeships in farming, fishing or forestry. It strikes me as an attempt to graft an inappropriate training model onto industries that don’t want it.
It is entirely possible that the trainees are going to as many of the theory classes as they want, and making a rational decision to pull out when they see no further benefit. This would be a failure’ on paper, but still leave the trainee employed, and possessing the skills they felt they needed.
Interviewing a sample of the drop-outs would be instructive – I wonder if anyone will bother?
Vote:April 27th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Well with low unemployment and all that, maybe they just got actual non-apprentice jobs?
Vote:April 27th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Could it be that, as in other government training courses, the programme is funded for training, but contracts are renewed based on successful outcomes – ie completion of training with a job at the end. If the policy design is at a disconnect with outcomes, perhaps National could be more focussed on policy redesign to get good results, not merely “hopefully focussed on ‘outcomes’”.
Vote:April 27th, 2009 at 11:49 am
National have never been pro-apprenticeship in anything. Why Tolley is harping about numbers as an excuse is a mystery. Back in the 90′s National wanted everyone to be a “casual employee” and deconstructed the apprenticeship board into a organisation that published shiney leaflets, lost important records and did not much else. Who does she is talking too? People who like socialist ideas, and vote national, but aren’t tradesmen?
Trades are not a dumping ground for dumboes who can’t reach University level, it’s a high skill industry. If 2/3 fail then that’s good. It shows our industry is maintaining high standards.
If the level of drop outs is a reflection of the culture and general lack of teaching skill by tradesmen then too bad. That’s an internal industry matter. Trades culture is not for everyone and as society becomes more liberal more youngsters will reject it. Government can’t change that.
This government just refuses to front up and say it’s broken and we’re dropping it from funding. What difference does it make?
Vote:April 27th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
If National say it is dropping such courses from funding because the system is broken it is a cop out. They should realign policy to get results, not just “outcomes”. That’s what we elect them to do.
Vote:April 27th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
I’ll be interested to see the report itself. I should say I was part of the Modern Apprenticeship development team (or whatever it was called) and supported the development. They were designed as part of the reinvigoration of industry training from 1999, reinvigoration that has been very successful.
The cost were always high relative to other forms of industry training but cheap compared with institution-based training. The additional cost was in the mentoring/pastoral care thought necessary to improve participation by younger people and various disengaged groups. The nature of the learners, their comparatively high needs, is what drove the additional costs. The comment up-thread about the match of training to industry is a good point. In many industries, seafood in particular, there’s no history of structured workplace learning and this again is contributing to the cost/outcomes.
I’d not rush to judge whether this is good or bad simply because it’s expensive. If it’s progressively increasing the participation and achievement rates of otherwise disengaged learners and contributing to productivity improvements it might still be a good investment (particularly when you compare it to institute-based programs which may have high completion rates but low levels of labour market benefits i.e. some faddish course run by a public or private provider but low employment/wage benefits).
Vote:April 27th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Could someone tell me where to find this report? I’ve looked at the TEC, Modern Apprenticeship and MoE sites… Tolley should have released the thing she’s commented on right?
Vote:April 27th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Ten to one the scheme is failing because it is laden with paperwork and bureaucratic B.S.
Vote:April 27th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
they can’t control outcomes because they don’t run the industry. It’s a classic case of the market showing the government where it is not required. What’s more they couldn’t possibly control it without it collapsing. Any government scheme will always be on the surface and well outside day to day considerations of the industry.
Vote:April 27th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
You’re so right about success being measured by the amount of money spent.
I recall watching parliament last year, where winnie was defending his track record.
One of his nz first buddies was actually boasting how much money winnie had just given away to the pacific islands. It was rather sickening actually, that the more money winston donates to other countries, the better job he has done.
I reckon I could do that job pretty well. I could dress up as santa, running down the street throwing hundred dollar notes in the air (not my money, but taxpayers of course).
That, would impress the labour mob.
Vote:April 27th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Paul
If you track it down, please post a link. I’m keen for a look too.
Vote:April 27th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Paul – there are links at the bottom of the PR to the MOE’s Education Counts website
http://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/govt+moves+keep+industry+trainees+training
Vote:April 27th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
I can’t believe that the MoE didn’t just ask you to do the evaluation PhilBest?
But seriously, there is a bit of paperwork associated with all industry training, a little too much was my view when I was involved (particularly given that the Industry Training Strategy is a partnership with industry and industry kick-in at least 30 per cent of the costs). But it’s far from failing, it’s thriving. Moreover, some of the official oversight was very advanced and focused on measuring meaningful outcomes; much more so, IMHO, than the oversight of tertiary institutions. FWIW, I’d say that the official and stakeholder engagement in industry training was very good and led to some of the best policy/implementation I’ve encountered in the education sector in NZ or Australia.
Wreck, industry is the one asking for more moneny for industry training – the industry training fund is capped unlike funding for tertiary institutions. Labour was right to claim they’d increased the fund, they’d done so substantially and it was always “welcomed”.
I hope that National build on the Strategy and Modern Apprenticeships. Bill English, when he was spokesman seemed to have some very good ideas about industry training. Moreover, National were part of the original architecture (Bill Birch and Lockwood Smith implemented the scheme first recommended under the fourth Labour government – Goff may well have been the Minister that commissioned the review).
I’ll wait to read the report before I comment further.
Vote:April 27th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Paul, I am leaning towards agreeing with you. I’m working on the data analysis side of this equation for quite a number of ITOs. There are some data cases that make me scratch my head, but from this perspective, the amount of training being undertaken is encouraging. It is a good way to build for a better future and this system is a long term work in progress. There needs to be some tweaks, but from what I understand of the ITO / TEC / NZQA discussions there will be changes pushing this in the right directions.
I too would be interested in seeing the full report.
Vote:April 27th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
… of course the more notworthy failed apprenticeship is that of Phil Goof (thx I2) as leader of the flopposition.
Vote:April 27th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
Having now read this report (thanks Jonathan), my view is that the Minister’s possibly picked up the wrong message but it’s a limited piece of work, I hope they follow it up.
Firstly, something like a third of most modern apprentices complete inside 5/6 years and the variables affecting this are hardly surprising – prior qualification, age and industry. Moreover, my memory is that non-completion is crude over reported (moving employers terminates the training agreement even if you go on to complete elsewhere). Sure agriculture and fisheries need to make some improvements but as I said up-thread, these are industries with very short histories of structured workplace learning.
Modern apprenticeships were designed to appeal across the spectrum, but it appears they’ve been particularly attractive to otherwise disengaged learners. This is the cohort that need the most support to gain and sustain productive employment. Agiculture and seafood are massive export earners (and we’ve got low trade intensity) and are aggressively value-adding and innovating, I’d certainly encourage them to do better, but to be frank, this cross tabulation doesn’t tell me a lot more than what I knew 8 years ago.
I suspect the researchers are really keen to do the next piece of work which is to (a) compare these results with similar institution-based learner cohort and (b) to work out what factors can be affected to realise improvements. I hope Minister Tolley funds this next and important piece of work.
Vote:April 28th, 2009 at 4:23 am
Maybe they (the apprentices) know that education is not the path to success in little old NZ. The sheer stupidity of the tendency in NZ to pointless credential inflation is perhaps most obvious in the agricultural, forestry, and fishing industries. Who oh why do old farts in their fifties find it necessary to formalise training that has not been formalised in the past. Do they just hate all the young people?
Vote:April 28th, 2009 at 7:01 am
Page 54 of the Industry Training report gives an interesting stat. The estimated probability of completion within 5 years of those who started in 2003 in level 1-4 qualifications is .35 for industry training incl Modern Apprentices and .34 for provider based education.
That the industry explains so much of the variation tells me that industries are quite different and need different responses. That a couple of the very large industries (Ag and electricity supply) have very low completion rates but very high participation rates, and employer contribution are proportional to participation rates, suggests (only suggests) that employers are getting what they want from industry training but what it is they want is not so much qualification completion but skill development and recognition (measured by unit standards in most cases).
There is plenty to work from in the reports. I’m pleased that MoE have produced some work that allows more detailed intra-industry training analysis and cross-sector analysis. The work does suggest more research if we want to make changes to policy settings. For example, if some high participation and paying industries have low completions is there an argument to change what we value and measure – because qualification completions appear may be relatively unimportant. This goes to earlier comments about only credentialing what is necessary. The counter point is that there is a public good in whole qualifications for transferability reasons, etc.
Anyway, exciting to see this work. Nice one MoE and peer reviewers.
Vote:April 28th, 2009 at 7:06 am
Paul, you are correct. The Training Agreement is a contract between the trainee, the ITO and the employer. Any change to that should (And usually does) result in a new Training Agreement being drawn up. This includes changing employer, changing the training programme and so forth. Programme changes are usually rolled up according to the aggregate enrolment rules though, so if he re-enrols within a reasonable space of time it should only be counted as one enrolment. But I’ll have to check what baseline the researchers used.
Vote:April 28th, 2009 at 11:29 am
Pascal and D, I agree the points you’ve made.
Thanks too Pascal for filling in the detail. My comments up-thread aren’t a criticism of the research, I think it confirms what many people thought and that’s very helpful when deciding what to do next. My criticism was of the narrow understanding implicit in the Minister’s release.
That’s a very good point and the issue that really needs following up. The focus on completions makes sense from government’s point of view but not necessarily from industry’s or the learner’s.
On reflection, I have to say I think David’s title for this post is very silly but I’ll assume he’s not read the report, only the Ministerial release. For the Minister, and then David, to focus on only one cluster of industries and only one pathway to criticise the scheme is incredibly short-sighted. I wonder what BusinessNZ make of this rather blunt criticism? I’d hope the Industry Training Strategy remains immune of day to day politics, something the Minister needs to reflect on, as that’s part of why it’s succeeded since 1991.
RossK, I understand but don’t agree the point you’ve made. “Modernising” apprenticeships was almost certainly a good intervention for the overall Industry Training Strategy. Apprenticeships are primarily a trade-based training pathway, but they’re also a well understood concept and the rest of the Strategy leverages off this. Whether they’d intended to or not, Lockwood and Birch had somewhat limted the development of the broader Strategy by not promoting apprenticeships as a key pathway.
Vote:April 28th, 2009 at 11:50 am
Pascal, your work sounds interesting. Is any of it public/ likely to be public?
Vote:April 28th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
D, I work for a company that delivers software solutions to ITOs, ranging from transactional systems for data capturing all the way through to PMS reporting and multi-dimensional data analysis. So, unlikely to be directly made public although the numbers they push through to the TEC are used in, for example, the report linked above.
If you are interested in speaking to somebody here, drop DPF a note with your email and what you’re looking for. He can pass it on to me as he can see my email address and I can see if anybody here can contact you.
Vote: