Launch Army-style campaign to encourage youngsters into apprenticeships, say major businesses

Ministers should use Army-style “Be the Best” adverts to encourage youngsters to sign up for apprenticeships and not go to university, a group of leading employers has said.

The new campaign is needed to end the “cultural stigma” when young people choose a vocational pathway instead of going to university, they say.

The call has come from the “5% Club” – a group of UK employers including Balfour Beatty, QinetiQ, Redrow and WSP – which has pledged to have at least five per cent of their workforce in so-called “earn and learn” positions.

The government-led campaign would be across TV, billboards and digital, and modelled on the British Army’s “Be the Best” and Royal Navy’s “Made in the Royal Navy” campaigns to create a sense of national pride around apprenticeships, vocational training and further education.

Leo Quinn, the group’s founder and group chief executive of Balfour Beatty, said (in his article below) an Army-style campaign could lead to tens of thousands of young people signing up.

Mr Quinn said: “We need to drive a cultural shift in the way people in this country view vocational training. In the aftermath of the pandemic, we need to end the focus on qualifications for qualifications sake and do everything in our power to ensure that training and further education is given parity of esteem with university degrees.

“The British Army’s inspirational ‘Be The Best’ campaign inspired tens of thousands of people to pursue a career in the Forces and revolutionised the Army’s recruitment strategy.

“We need the same energy and drive to end the current stigma around choosing a non-university pathway.

“And so I urge the Government to launch a major campaign – on television, on digital and on billboards across the country – highlighting how those choosing to do apprenticeships, vocational training and further education courses are a source of pride for the people of this country, and are contributing to our national recovery.

“The decisions that the Government makes in this area will be life-defining for millions of young people across the country.

“With the Government putting skills at the heart of its agenda, we can work together to ensure that we are doing everything in our power to support the younger generation who will be the key to our national recovery and continued prosperity.”

Gillian Keegan, the skills minister, told The Telegraph: “As a member of the 5% Club, we recognise how vital it is that more young people know about all the options available to them.

“We are taking action through our reforms to post-16 education to make sure there are more training routes available, and to end the illusion that a degree is the only path to success and a good job.

“Apprenticeships are playing a central role in this. We are continuing to work with employers of all sizes, including offering a £3,000 cash boost for each new apprentice they take on, so even more young people can kick start their career and we can deliver the skills businesses and the economy need to recover from the pandemic.”

We need an Army-style 'Be the Best' campaign to boost apprenticeships

By Leo Quinn, group chief executive of Balfour Beatty

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on young people will reverberate for decades to come. Crucial years in their education have been disrupted, and hundreds of thousands of people who should have been transitioning from school or college to the workplace have been unable to do so. The scale of the challenge facing young people in the wake of this global crisis cannot be overstated.

But as the country begins to open up following lockdown and starts on the road to recovery from this crisis, we have an incredible opportunity to retrain, reskill and unlock the potential of millions of youngsters who have been so cruelly affected by the pandemic.

When I founded The 5% Club in 2013, youth unemployment was unacceptably high and “earn and learn” training – apprenticeships, graduate programmes and sponsored student schemes – were low on the government agenda. I wanted to create a forum that would encourage employers everywhere to ramp up their on-the-job training and to transform employment chances for young people, and in turn, to contribute to enhancing the global competitiveness of the country. And in just eight years, The 5% Club now has over 500 members – both large and small businesses operating in the UK – who have committed to having at least five per cent of their workforce in “earn and learn” positions.

Covid-19 has done much to turn back the clock, with rising youth unemployment and falling numbers in on-the-job training. However, it has also focused minds across the Government and in this country’s great business community, who all see that young people are the key to our post-pandemic future. Our collective recovery – business, social and economic – will be defined by human and not just financial capital.

The Government used the Queen’s Speech this week to promise a skills "revolution" for England, with loans for adults wanting to retrain and more powers to deal with failing colleges. The recognition by the Prime Minister that the right skills and training is the route to better, well-paid jobs is key, and will lay the foundations upon which to build back better from Covid-19 and level up the whole of the country.

Business has a huge role to play in this agenda, working with the Government to address the skills gap with the same zeal, spirit of social responsibility and desire to solve the biggest problems that was so evident during the height of the Covid crisis.

The 5% Club is this week publishing its “Five-Point Manifesto”, building on the work already done by ministers and urging the Government to not only fulfil the agenda set out in the Queen’s Speech, but do even more to ensure that this moment of huge opportunity does not pass us by.

The manifesto contains a series of ambitious proposals, but at its heart is a call for a unified national policy approach by creating a cross-Whitehall Skills Taskforce which leads the development, and coordinates the implementation of, all aspects of employment, skills and workplace learning policy across the country.

If we are to level-up the entire country and build back better, we also need to level up “earn and learn” opportunities. This means reforming the Apprenticeship Levy, which, in its current form, does not work as well as it could for businesses who recognise just how transformative it could be. In addition, we need to ensure that the “earn and learn” schemes championed by the Government are accessible by everyone, no matter where they come from or their financial situation. That means investing in digital skills through subsidised home improvements and major investment in digital hubs across municipal facilities like schools, colleges and libraries.

Crucially, we need to drive a cultural shift in the way people in this country view vocational training. In the aftermath of the pandemic, we need to end the focus on qualifications for qualifications sake and do everything in our power to ensure that training and further education is given parity of esteem with university degrees.

The British Army’s memorable “Be The Best” campaign inspired tens of thousands of people to pursue a career in the Forces and revolutionised the Army’s recruitment strategy. We need the same energy and drive to end the current stigma around choosing a non-university pathway. And so I urge the Government to launch a major campaign – on television, on digital and on billboards across the country – highlighting how those choosing to do apprenticeships, vocational training and further education courses are a source of pride for the people of this country, and are contributing to our national recovery.

The decisions that the Government makes in this area will be life-defining for millions of young people across the country. With the Government putting skills at the heart of its agenda, we can work together to ensure that we are doing everything in our power to support the younger generation who will be the key to our national recovery and continued prosperity.