- Conference
- 2011 National Delegate Conference
- Date
- 28 February 2011
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
UNISON supports the creation of properly-negotiated apprenticeship schemes which pay apprentices at the rate for the job, provide high quality training and which are not used as cheap labour to substitute for existing jobs.
UNISON also believes that apprenticeship schemes should seek to tackle gender stereotyping, noting the 2010 TUC and YWCA England and Wales report “Apprenticeships and gender” which showed that although the problems of occupational segregation, gender stereotyping, poor careers advice, low pay and lack of progression for women in the apprenticeships system is well documented and well understood, little progress has been made in recent years in terms of narrowing the gender pay gap or encouraging more women into non-traditional apprenticeships.
Despite the recession many employers, encouraged by the trade unions, have acknowledged skill shortages and have taken on apprentices. The more enlightened employers have recognised there are many young people with good practical skills but poor academic qualifications and have tried to offer apprenticeships to these groups.
However they have been unable to do so because so few of the training colleges will accept students unless they have obtained a minimum of 5 grade A-C GCSEs. This disenfranchises the less academically inclined – often those from poor backgrounds – and is contrary to the principles apprenticeships were founded upon.
Conference asks that the National Executive Council liaise with and use it’s influence with all relevant bodies, in particular contacts in the education field, to persuade colleges to be less rigid in their approach and to relax the entry requirements so that for apprenticeships practical skills are weighted equally with academic achievement.
Conference, therefore, calls on the National Executive Council to update the UNISON Negotiating Guide to Apprenticeships to include:
1)the new skills framework for apprentices;
2)widening access to apprenticeships to under-represented groups.