Apprentices: Standards
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made an assessment of the causes of the recent improvement in the apprenticeship achievement rate.
Answered by Janet Daby
The apprenticeship achievement rate for apprenticeship standards increased by 6 percentage points to 60.5% for the 2023/24 academic year.
There are a range of drivers of non-achievement, and the department worked in partnership with providers, employers and apprentices to understand and directly address these.
The Apprenticeship Accountability Framework has supported and challenged providers to take proactive steps to improve the quality of their provision. Where performance falls short, the framework enables targeted challenge and intervention. As a result, most providers with an Accountability Framework Improvement Plan significantly improved their achievement rates between 2021/22 and 2023/24.
In addition, the support and guidance available to employers and apprentices has been enhanced and the department has worked with the Learning and Work Institute to produce a number of guides to support apprentices’ on-programme experience, including a line manger guide to apprenticeships.
The department has also introduced tools to provide timely feedback on quality and reasons for withdrawal so that we can continue to drive forward progress in the coming years, in partnership with the sector.
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