Route reviews restart after COVID-19 lockdown

Wide-ranging reviews to help strengthen apprenticeships and technical education have been relaunched today

Key focus will be on the hair and beauty; creative and design; agriculture, environmental and animal care; and engineering and manufacturing sectors

Today (18 September) marks the return of ‘route reviews’ for technical education across different employment sectors.

They were postponed in March due to the COVID-19 lockdown. However employers, providers, awarding organisations, and the Institute have developed more resilient ways of doing business, so despite the future uncertainties we feel we can restart this important work and see it through to completion for the benefit of employers and learners. 

The reviews take a strategic look at the different sectors and how technical education programmes such as apprenticeships and T Levels meet the needs of employers.

The hair and beauty; creative and design; agriculture, environmental and animal care; and engineering and manufacturing sectors will be under review this autumn.

The Institute’s Chief Executive, Jennifer Coupland, said:

“It is great news that the route reviews are resuming. They are incredibly important to ensuring that apprenticeships and wider technical education remains up to date and vital for the training of staff across the economy.“I would urge employers from across the hair and beauty; creative and design; agriculture, environmental and animal care; and engineering and manufacturing sectors to input as much as possible to ensure their technical training remains high quality for years to come.”

A further engineering and manufacturing route review workshop, run by partner organisation Enginuity, will be held on 8 October.

A series of workshops are being held on 2, 12, 23 and 26 October for the agriculture, environmental and animal care sector run by fellow partner Landex.

If you would like to attend any of the workshops, or find out more about the wider review process, please visit our website:

https://www.instituteforapprenticeships.org/reviews-and-consultations/route-reviews/

Note for editors:

• No further reviews will take place this year, meaning that the health and science and care services reviews have been postponed.

• Once route reviews restart we will need to keep progress under review in light of the changing situation with COVID-19.