Last month, at IBM’s Southbank offices, Matthew Hancock, the Minister of State for Digital and Culture attended the celebration of the first year of digital degree apprenticeships, supported through the Tech Partnerships.
The Minister of State noted that digital industries contribute over £100bn to the UK economy and fully appreciated the critical importance of skilled and talented young people, to gain high-level digital skills, while they work.
Degree apprenticeships are one of the key routes gaining momentum, designed by employers, such as IBM, Lloyds Bank, BT and Capgemini, working with a growing number of universities including Aston, Essex, Manchester Metropolitan and Winchester.
Tech Partnerships' CEO outlined the success of the Digital & Technology Solutions degree apprenticeships, highlighting the 60 employers adopting the programme since its launch back in 2015, 17 Universities engaged and a number becoming accredited to offer the course in September 2017 and that currently 700 degree apprentices are currently working and studying the programme.
At the celebration, nine current high achieving apprentices from the first cohort to start the programme were awarded certificates, representing companies including BT, Barclays and IBM. Industries from SME’s and large companies attended, some already involved, while others present, to hear from apprentices as well as industry, about the virtues of the programme.
So this is no ‘whim’, but in fact a call to arms for industry to embrace this particular apprentice approach and comments from apprentices such as:
“I love the way I’m fully immersed in the business…getting the best of both worlds and I’ll get to graduate without a student debt”
These appear to chime with an audience mainly represented by industry, who are eager to ensure that any academic programmes are delivered to business needs, while universities were eager to retain rigour on the standard of courses.
One of the most interesting features that came up in discussions was the variety with which each university expects an apprentice to be in the university and academic environment?
There appeared to be general agreement the courses cannot be delivered completely remotely and some degree of understanding that ‘campus life’ was important into the development of the apprentice, but on the whole industry appeared to expect the apprentice to spend almost 90% of their time in industry!
The ‘wonder’ for apprentices and future apprentices appears to be that they can graduate while being reasonably well paid and there does not seem a lack of appetite from industry to consider this route, as a flexible approach growing their own talent and ensuring they address skills relevant to their operations.
So how do parents, teachers, career advisors or pupils get to understand this pathway?
Although the digital degree apprenticeships are viewed by many to be a game changer, the lack of teachers and career advisors at the launch posed an interesting question; so how will teachers and career advisors (who may be one and the same in many schools) get to know, understand or even promote this pathway to young people? How do teachers, leadership teams and Ofsted recognise the value of pupils entering these pathways from school?
Most of the industry partners and universities talked about outreach and allowing apprentices the opportunity to go out to local schools. With some of the companies listed, having STEM Ambassadors already, I suggested that every new apprentice could become a STEM Ambassador degree apprentice champion, sharing their experience more widely not only to pupils at outreach activities or ‘events’, but directly to teachers and career advisors, so it is an offer and pathway that is more widely understood.
So even more critically, how do key influencers, like parents know about and value this degree pathway? This was less understood and certainly requires broader thought. Parents must be part of the story to ensure, in this case, digital degree apprenticeships become a well-respected alternative, while addressing the growing scream from the digital industries in the lack of quality skilled young people entering the digital world of work. This route will surely offer a real boost to the tech sector!