9 February 2017

Urgent industry input needed on Print Trailblazer

We need your help to ensure single standard apprenticeships do not reduce levels of expertise in the industry.

The history

In March 2015 a consortium of employers led by James Buffoni of Ryedale Group Ltd secured the trailblazer (a new employer-defined standard for apprenticeship programmes) for the industry. The standards are employer owned, relate to specific occupations, and feature a graded end point assessment. The trailblazer secured is to develop a Level 3 standard that covers pre-press, press and post-press (finishing). The government awarded the trailblazer as a core with options, with print as the core and the options as pre-press, press and post press (finishing).

Through many focused meetings, the consortium has produced a standard which has been reviewed by the industry and following feedback, adjusted and submitted to government. This standard was approved by the Trailblazer panel but it was approved subject to certain conditions being met. These conditions are what we are today seeking your input on.

The condition applied by the government panel is that the options are combined so that there is a single standard and an apprentice would need to master all three areas i.e. pre-press, press and post-press before they would be able to pass their apprenticeship. Several drafts have been resubmitted in order to represent the views of the consortium as well as to the Trailblazer panel conditions.

The current position 

The feedback has been that the position from the panel has not changed and they are still insisting that it is a single core standard. This essentially means that any new apprentice in our industry would need to master pre-press, printing and post-press before they would be able to complete. We believe that this requirement is impractical because it is not realistic to expect an apprentice to reach the level of technical and practical knowledge and expertise across all of these areas, to a level that employers require from their staff. Our concern is that this requirement may therefore reduce overall levels of expertise compared with those achieved under the existing apprenticeship training approach. It would have significant impact for some companies on pay rates as there would be no difference between the three roles.

We see no value in us going back to the panel again, however, as you may have seen in recent newspaper reports, the Institute for Apprenticeships (IfA) is well underway with the key appointments to the board announced this week. Print sits under the Engineering & Manufacturing Route Panel which will be made up of industry representatives and not civil servants. On that basis we believe that our current challenge on our trailblazer could be resolved if we could speak directly with the panel.

What you can do

To make this happen we need your support, if you believe that a single standard will be inappropriate to our industry please complete the form below so we can approach the IfA with employer backing. If you have specific concerns we would appreciate you emailing these to [email protected] 

Closing date for input is 31 March 2017.