Degree apprenticeships - A way for universities to gain a new income stream, align their activity with market demand, and forge relationships with employers who can influence students' careers. While at the same time, offering students a route to earn top qualifications, while being paid, and without a student loan.
It's no wonder that degree apprenticeships are growing in popularity across the UK. But before you consider pitching, it pays to do your homework.
The delivery of degree apprenticeships is very different to that of traditional undergraduate programmes. Although your subject specialism will stay the same, you'll need to think about a whole range of new factors - like employer engagement, apprenticeship funding, Functional Skills, and management aspects like completing off-the-job training and an end-point assessment.
Here are 7 key things you need to know before you pitch:
While degree apprentices are enrolled with your institution, they're also full-time employees with an external employer and will spend most of their time learning at work. To optimise each apprentice's progress, it's vital to keep employers engaged in the learning journey. Employers need to be involved every step of the way to provide support, enable teaching and approve progress.
You'll do yourself a huge favour if you put in place systems to join up communications between your tutors, employers, and apprentices.
Degree apprenticeships are funded by the ESFA. To claim funding for your learners, you have to comply with its strict regulations - like submitting accurate ILR (individualised learner records) every month. You may also need to invest in an apprenticeship system with a built-in ILR tool, and train staff to make sure they have the expertise to maintain compliance.
Unlike traditional undergraduates, who often have to meet strict grade requirements, degree apprentices may not have level 2 maths and English. In these cases, universities must support degree apprentices in achieving their Functional Skills before they sit their end-point assessment (EPA).
All degree apprentices must spend at least 20% of their contracted hours completing off-the-job training. Off-the-job training must also be planned, recorded and tracked for quality assurance and funding compliance. Using an apprenticeship software with a built-in off-the-job training tracker will make this process much easier to manage.
All apprentices need to pass their End-point assessment (EPA) to complete their apprenticeship. But this isn't a mandatory requirement in all HE qualifications - the 'degree' part of the degree apprenticeship.
This means you may have to encourage apprentices to sit their EPA. Because if they left their programme after achieving only the degree, without attempting the EPA, you won't receive the completion payment - 20% of the total apprenticeship funding. This will impact your success rates and could damage relationships with employers.
Ofsted now inspect all universities that deliver degree apprenticeships. This means a few changes in delivery and quality measures but helps to improve the quality of degree apprenticeships across the country.
With so many things to think about with the delivery of degree apprenticeships, most HEIs use an apprenticeship software to manage the entire process.
OneFile is the UK's most popular degree apprenticeship software, used by over many HEIs to support their delivery. This includes the UK's largest provider of degree apprenticeships - the University of Exeter.
They know that OneFile has everything they need to plan, deliver, manage and track the entire apprenticeship journey. Features include a built-in eportfolio, funding calculator, learning journal, course builder, off-the-job tracker and reporting suite.
To find out exactly how OneFile works, how you can use it to deliver degree apprenticeships, and what other universities think, download your ultimate guide to degree apprenticeships.