Last September, the Prime Minister announced a “rebalancing” of funding from the apprenticeship levy (shortly to become the Growth and Skills Levy). Employers’ ability to use the funds for postgraduate-level apprenticeships would be restricted in the hope of shoring up lower levels. A couple of months later, Skills Minister Jacqui…
In 2024, Instructure convened a Commission of higher education and lifelong learning experts to assess emerging policies related to skills development, including the Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE) and the Growth and Skills Levy (GSL). These policies aim to reform how education and training are funded and delivered to provide flexibility…
Today, the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) and Instructure have published a new Policy Note: Aligning the Lifelong Learning Entitlement and the Growth and Skills Levy: how these policies could work together under a new Government. The Policy Note, co-authored by Rose Stephenson, HEPI’s Director of Policy and Advocacy, and…
By John Cope, former ministerial adviser and board member of the Institute for Apprenticeships & Technical Education. The recent story in the Financial Times that employers ‘lose more than £3.3bn in unspent apprenticeship levy funds’ is the latest in a long line of gloomy stories around the Levy. We have lurched between…
This blog was contributed by John Cope, Director of Strategy, Policy & Public Affairs, UCAS. There isn’t an education minister in living memory who didn’t at some point say they wanted to bring ‘parity of esteem’ between higher education and apprenticeships. Most believed it when they said it. Not many…