19 December 2019

Protect our print apprenticeship

Having begun the process in March 2015 to secure the Print Technician Standard Level 3 programme it finally received full and final approval from the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE - the department given responsibility for development, approval and review of all new Trailblazer standards by Government) in May 2019.

Just over 6 months later the Institute for Apprenticeships have launched a review of standards and the Print Technician Standard Level 3 has been included in this review. A key focus of this review is to reduce the number of ‘process' occupations, where they define a ‘process' occupation as one where something is manufactured. We disagree with the prospect of such a consolidation.

30 standards in all have been included in the process review category. Full list can be found at https://www.instituteforapprenticeships.org/reviews/engineering-and-manufacturing-route-review/

Apprenticeships that cover related industries/activities are grouped by Government into clusters. We have looked at other standards within our cluster on the occupational map and we have also considered some standards which are outside of our cluster and compared them with the Print Technician Standard Level 3. We do not believe that there is sufficient overlap in the standards for consolidation and we believe that there is risk that standards will be devalued for the industry if they are not sufficiently specific.

The current cluster for print and associated occupations within the Engineering & Manufacturing Occupational Map are as follows:

If we wish to protect the independence of the Print Technician Standard Level 3, once again we need to ensure that we have a solid response with the full support of the industry. To this end, it is critical for us that you take the time to complete the survey in the link below which will give us the information required to respond to the consultation.

The survey will take 20-30 minutes, but I would appreciate if you could take the time to complete. I would like to have all responses in by 31 January 2020, so that we can develop our responses and provide a strong industry voice, helping protect the Print Technician Standard Level 3 we worked so hard to achieve over the last four years.

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/protectourapprenticeship

For more information or any clarification, please contact Ursula Daly on [email protected]