Poor-quality apprenticeships are 'not worthy of the name,' warns Ofsted head

Sir Michael Wilshaw says some apprenticeships are just a way of giving credit to 'making coffee and cleaning floors'

Head of Ofsted, Sir Michael Wilshaw told the Education Secretary he is ‘extremely concerned’ about the number of illegal schools (Rex)

Some apprenticeships are “not worthy of the name” and are just a way of giving credit to low-skilled tasks such as “making coffee and cleaning floors”, Sir Michael Wilshaw , the head of Ofsted, will say this week.

Employers offering poor-quality, low-level apprenticeships are wasting public funds and abusing the trust placed in them by the Government and apprentices to deliver high-quality training, Sir Michael will tell a CBI conference on Thursday. Retail and care workers are particularly likely to be signed up for low-level apprenticeships that do not provide them with sufficient training, stretch them, or improve their skills.

Instead, they are frequently being used as a means of accrediting existing low-level skills, like making coffee and cleaning floors, he will say.

In a major report to be published this week, Ofsted will conclude that many of the courses on offer are failing to give learners the skills and knowledge employers are looking for, or add value to the economy. Some interviewed for the report were not even aware that they were on an apprenticeship programme.

Sir Michael said he fully supported the Government’s commitment to deliver three million apprenticeships over the next five years. However, the Ofsted report concludes that the rise in these poor-quality courses has devalued the brand just when there is a concerted effort to put vocational learning on an equal footing with academic studies.