It was positive to see last week the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) confirm it will continue with its current approach to look, where practical, to integrate the awarding of mandatory qualifications into the completion of the end point assessment (EPA).
Although more integrated assessment on its own will not solve the perceived issue with apprenticeship quality, it is through a significant step forward on improving apprenticeship completions. With nearly 330 responses to the consultation this is a policy that has clearly sizeable interested across a wide range of stakeholders – and it is important to recognise at the outset though that a policy change like this will cause some disruption for providers and end point assessment organisations.
For providers juggling different iterations of the same standard and assessment plan has added complexity that we rarely had to contend with within the legacy apprenticeship frameworks. The change in policy will also mean that the role and input of the training provider post gateway will be increased further. On this point, it would now be a really sensible time for the Department for Education (DfE) to look at their current position stating that the provider’s responsibilities end at the gateway, and the end point assessment is managed and co-ordinated between the employer and the end point assessment organisation. Only last month, the DfE final finally acknowledged that the formal responsibility for selecting end point assessment would become the responsibility of the training providers, unless of course the employer really wanted to be involved in this exercise.
