04.02.2010
New flexible qualifications will give employers in the food and drink industry the opportunity to develop their own learning programmes for Apprenticeships .
Work is under way to bring Apprenticeships in line with the Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF) - the new credit-based accreditation system for work-based training and qualifications in England, Wales and Northern Ireland – by next year.
According to food and drink sector skills council Improve, which is overseeing the changes to Apprenticeships in the food and drink industry, the new system will hand employers much greater power in determining the content of training, even opening the door to companies developing their own in-house Apprenticeships .
Improve’s development director, Derek Williams, said: “At the moment, we are working on the biggest overhaul of work-based and vocational qualifications in the food and drink industry for 30 years, and this will have a direct impact on Apprenticeships . Employers will have much more power in specifying the content, process and delivery of training. Instead of opting for pre-packaged Apprenticeships with mainly fixed content, employers will be able to specify what they want for their business.”
Improve has been developing families of new qualifications , Improve Proficiency Qualifications (IPQs) and Improve Vocational Qualifications (IVQs), which from next year will be incorporated into Apprenticeships in Food Manufacture.
IPQs are structured around a system of units, with each individual unit being based on the skills and knowledge needed to carry out a particular job role. Learners will earn credits for each unit completed, accumulating credits over time as they work towards a full qualification.
“The great advantage of IPQs and IVQs is that, because they are credit-based, they are extremely flexible. Virtually every skill, job role or function needed to work in any company in the food and drink industry can be given a credit rating and incorporated into one of these new qualifications . We have been able to work directly with employers, ask them about the skills and knowledge they need, and build that into units within the IPQs and IVQs.”
Mr Williams explained that all Apprenticeships are required to include a competency based training element intended to assess the apprentice’s ability to carry out their job role effectively. The other element is study-based and intended to develop an apprentice’s knowledge about their work.
“The flexibility of the new qualifications will translate directly to Apprenticeships . There are already more than 1,000 individual units developed ready for the IPQs and IVQs. Employers will pick and choose from these to piece together their own tailor-made learning programmes for Apprenticeships . This will offer them the freedom to specify exactly what their apprentices learn to suit the specific needs of the business.
“Our vision is that this will go a step further still. We want to be able to work with employers directly on a one-to-one basis and map their own in-house training to the credit framework. This would allow them to specify the content for their own bespoke Apprenticeship scheme, which would lead to their apprentices gaining recognised qualifications .”
While Improve is responsible for developing units and overseeing the overall structure of the IPQs and IVQs, individual qualifications based on these units will be developed and accredited by existing awarding organisations.
