New drive to attract young people into a bakery career.

Bakers are set to benefit from a new drive to recruit more, and better-trained young workers, through revamped apprenticeships in Bakery, which came into effect last month.

Improve, the food and drink sector skills council, has revised the frameworks of the two levels of bakery apprenticeships, cutting down the hours apprentices spend in the classroom and ensuring more practical skills are delivered.

The aim is to attract more apprentices onto the standard scheme, boosting the average number of starters from 65 per year to 90, and to reverse the decline in young people tackling the advanced apprenticeship. Teresa Brookes, learning frameworks manager at Improve, commented: "We have consulted employers and made changes to the apprenticeships in keeping with their recommendations. As in most food-and-drink sectors, bakery suffers from hard-to-fill vacancies, skills gaps, and an ageing workforce, with the majority of employees aged over 35. We see these revised apprenticeships as the ideal vehicle to bring more young people into the industry to help address these problems."

The main revision has been made to the advanced apprenticeship (modem apprenticeship in Wales) which takes approximately two years to complete and delivers a bakery NVQ at level 3. The technical certificates, introduced in January 2003 before the creation of Improve, have been removed from the framework. Teresa explained: "The technical certificate could be obtained by one of two routes--completion of a retail qualification, or a BTEC National Award in food science and manufacturing technology. Neither of these qualifications was workable. The retail qualification was largely irrelevant to most young people pursuing a career in bakery, and the BTEC was only available at three colleges in England. They also duplicated a lot of what was taught in the NVQ, and resulted in extra time spent in the classroom, which proved impractical for the apprentice and their employer.

"Recruitment onto the advanced apprenticeship programme in England and Wales has declined in the last three years, and consultation with employers suggested that this has been because of the introduction of the technical certificate. At the moment, an average of just 15 learners begin an advanced bakery apprenticeship each year and completion rates are extremely poor. By removing the technical certificates, we're confident that numbers will start to rise."

The standard apprenticeship (foundation modern apprenticeship in Wales) delivers a bakery NVQ at level 2. The revised framework recognises that the knowledge element can be delivered and assessed through completion of the NVQ.

"Take-up onto the standard apprenticeship programme in England has remained consistent over the last few years, averaging 65 learners per year," commented Teresa. "By further promoting the apprenticeship programme to potential learners and offering increased support to employers and learning providers, our aim is to increase take-up by at least 35 per cent over the next three years." If you are interested in offering an apprenticeship, or require any further information, please:

Contact Improve on tel: [phone] or visit www.improveltd.co.uk.