Improve to boost apprenticeships with revamped framework

Transformed food and drink manufacturing apprenticeships have been launched throughout England and Wales by sector skills council Improve.

Separate apprenticeships for bakery, meat and poultry processing and food and drink manufacture have been replaced by a single, flexible framework that can be tailored to individual categories.

The food manufacture apprenticeships qualification will be equivalent to five good GCSEs, with an advanced apprenticeship offering training to A-Level standard.

“Half of all workers in food and drink manufacture are not qualified to the equivalent of five good GCSEs and a quarter lack basic skills in reading, writing and numeracy,” said Jack Matthews, chief executive of Improve. “Apprenticeships were identified as an important way for the industry to address these problems more than 10 years ago. Unfortunately, the apprenticeships developed at that time have not led to the widespread take-up hoped for.”

Improve said the framework would help it to boost apprenticeship numbers in the industry from an expected 400 next year to 2,000 in 2012. Achieving the target is crucial to addressing skills shortages and falling numbers of recruits, it added.

“With an overall pass rate of 61%, dipping to 45% at the higher level, it is clear changes are needed to make our apprenticeship system more attractive to employers and employees,” said Matthews.

The system is modular with more than 500 units, enabling apprentices to work towards a technical diploma and a national vocational qualification in bite-sized chunks and the emphasis is on work-based learning.

“All apprentices will also be taught core skills relevant across industry, for example food hygiene and business skills, as well as basic skills in numeracy, literacy and communication,” said Matthews. “This means they qualify capable of multi-tasking, switching roles and moving easily into other areas of work within the sector.”