Apprenticeship Facts and Myths
7 Common Myths Surrounding Apprenticeships
There’s lots of information provided about apprenticeships, that just isn’t incorrect. As a result, there are a lot of “apprenticeship facts” thought to be true, due to the sheer amount of myths surrounding apprenticeships.
However, you can rest easy because I’m here to set the record straight. So, without further ado let’s sort out some of these apprenticeship facts, and get started.
1. “Since my levy funds expire after 24 months, I cannot use them to fund the entire apprenticeship, as the apprenticeship lasts longer than 24 months”
- The fact that your funds expire after 24 months doesn’t stop you from meeting the full cost of your apprenticeship. Any extra funds will get added into you next levy fund, as long as you continue to pay the levy.
- The cost of apprenticeships is spread over the full length of the apprenticeship, so you don’t have to pay a large sum of money at the start. It’s spread out equally in monthly instalments.
- If, after 24 months your funds are not spent, they will expire. Also, if your account does not hold sufficient funds to cover the monthly cost, the government will pay 90% of the balance due.
- The National Apprenticeship Service is here to help as well. There’s a section called ‘Estimate my apprenticeship funding’. This tool allows businesses to work out how much the organisation can spend on the apprenticeship.
2. “if I don’t spend all of my levy, it gets spent by the central government on something else.”
If you still have money left in your levy pot after two years, the excess does go back to the government but it’s only spent on apprenticeship training for smaller businesses. However, the likelihood that you won’t spend all of your levy is quite low as businesses are taking on more and more apprentices in recent years. You may as well try and use your whole levy for staff training if you want to get the most out of it.
3. “20% off-the-job training is inflexible: it has to involve 1 day off a week, spent in college.”
Off the job training doesn’t have to include a day’s training, in college, once a week. There are many different ways of delivering the required training. It can be done in a way and place that fits the apprentice and the provider. As long as the apprentice is learning new knowledge, skills, and behaviours required, it can be done anyway. The style and timing can vary from a block release to a 1 day a week format. It’s really up to you, your apprentice, and your training provider.
4. “providers have to advertise apprenticeship vacancies for us.”
- As an employer, you’re free to advertise your apprenticeship roles as you please, you can place the vacancies on your own website, you’re not limited to advertising through providers.
- Many employers choose to advertise through the ‘find an apprenticeship’ service. This allows for potential apprentices to find lots of apprenticeships all in one place.
- Employers can also use ‘recruit an apprentice’ to post their vacancies, this will also show up on ‘find an apprenticeship’.
5. “I can’t put my existing staff on an apprenticeship.”
Apprenticeships are a fantastic and often cost-effective way to retrain employees of all ages with new skills. This flexibility of the training makes it easy for employees to continue working their regular jobs whilst undergoing the apprenticeship training. Instead of paying for staff training a lot of companies are opting to put their staff on apprenticeships instead.
6. “Apprenticeships are only for entry level employees – they are for low skilled people.”
Apprenticeships have many different levels to them depending on the complexity and content of the course.
- Level 2 apprenticeships are equal to a GCSE level grade
- Level 3 apprenticeships are equal to an A level grade
- Level 4 and level 5 apprenticeships are equal to Foundation degree and above
- Level 5 and level 6 apprenticeships are equal to a bachelors or master’s degree
Apprenticeships are designed specifically to be inclusive of everybody’s education level.
7. “Apprenticeships are only for young people (16-18).”
This is simply not true. Apprenticeships have a stigma of being something school levers and young people go into. But nowadays anybody over the age of 16 can undertake an apprenticeship. In 2018/19, there were 742,400 people participating in an apprenticeship in England, and that number is growing every day.
Apprenticeships can be seen as a cost-effective way to train up your staff whilst getting them the skills and qualifications needed to help your business flourish. Whether you want to train new staff or teach new skills to your existing staff there are government funds to help you out, made available for businesses of any size.
I hope I’ve managed to clear up some of the biggest apprenticeship myths that we know of and turn them into apprenticeship facts. If you know of any more apprenticeship facts or myths we’d love to hear from you and feature them in our next blog.
If your like to learn more about apprenticeships were happy to help. Drop us an email or get in touch.