Apprenticeship Challenges – How to ensure compliance and manage evidence

Man looking at some papers

How can compliance and evidence management add value?

Introduction: The Current Context
Since 2015, the Government has driven improvement in apprenticeships. This programme of reform was responsible for the launch of the levy and the introduction of standards, amongst other changes.

In 2019, Ofsted revised its inspection criteria, releasing the New Educational Framework. The emphasis of this NEF was on intent, implementation, and impact, with much-reduced credit given to achieving data-driven outcomes. With the apprenticeship reform's introduction of the behavioural standards, and now Ofsted introducing two of only four criteria that focus directly on these components, many providers are rightly worried about their next inspection visit.

This article is the sixth in a series of short reads covering the pain points faced by apprenticeship training providers in this new world.

In this piece we take a look at another challenge experienced by employers when the importance of releasing apprentices for OTJ training is emphasised.

Compliance issues and managing evidence
At any level of learning, the life of an educator is plagued by the need to prove progress and evidence the impact of interventions.

For training providers, there is a need to supply evidence for the standards to progress through the gateway. There is a need to evidence learning at all points in this process, which most apprentices and some tutors find burdensome.

Finding a simple way to map the standards and match this to appropriate evidence of progress is a problem. This means that most training providers are forced to rely heavily on Quality and Compliance officers to ensure adequate delivery to meet both Ofsted and funding requirements.

Conclusion
The first step to meeting the different standards is to map out what needs to be achieved to be successful. Entelechy provides this mapping, showing how the development of Character delivers the behaviour standards.

Our diagnostic tool, 360Explore, is an opportunity to acknowledge prior learning. The primary goal of this tool is to inform the learner of their strengths and growth opportunities. However, the feedback from people who complete this exercise also maps where the learner has already achieved the standard required.

The learner is free to then develop those Character Qualities required to fill in the map. When they have done the work and completed the assessment, the Badge they achieve acts as evidence of progress.

Mapping, evidencing prior learning and assessments to demonstrate impact, are vital components that make the Compliance and Quality officer relax. The bonus? The process is completely learner-focused and is clear in its intent to improve the apprentice.