Keele University offers apprenticeships across various sectors and specialisms, covering everything from data science to geoscience and speech and language therapy.
As part of National Apprenticeship Week coverage, Lou Taylor-Murison, Keele’s Head of Apprenticeships and Partnership-based Learning, writes about how the university is helping people to access professions they never thought they would be able to and the importance of close collaboration with businesses.
“Keele’s apprenticeship offer has grown a lot since we began providing apprenticeships in 2018. We’re currently working with over 240 employers and have over 1,000 apprentices live. I believe our apprenticeships are so successful because they are, and always have been, employer led.
Our portfolio is regularly reviewed against local and national skills needs and our apprentices come from many different backgrounds as well as a broad age range. Our oldest apprentice is in her 60s and our youngest are 18. Many apprentices are reskilling and upskilling while others are new career entrants.
A major focus for us is growing Level 6 provision, which currently includes nursing, allied health disciplines, a data science programme and environmental science. We’re the first provider to market nationally with a geoscientist apprenticeship.
There was a lot of intensive partnership working to bring that together and while it only started in September, it has been really positive so far and we have seen great benefits to bringing employers together to design it. We’re also planning to launch a Level 6 provision in leadership and management.
There are a huge number of benefits to apprenticeships. Because apprentices doing their learning in a work environment, we see them succeeding in work so much quicker. We see unexpected promotions on programme. There is a lot of project-based learning as part of an apprenticeship, and these live projects deliver real business benefits too.
It is great to see people access professions they never thought they would be able to. Our data science apprenticeship doesn’t require apprentices to have A Level maths, which has really reduced barriers, enabled more women especially to participate and supported employers with their widening participation and recruitment objectives.
In our nursing associate programme, learners don’t need a Level 3 qualification, they can get into it with Level 2 and some experience. We have seen people complete the programme and Keele and top up to become registered nurses.
And working regionally with partners to open up progression pathways has led to programmes such as the Nursing Associate apprenticeship we launched in Telford in the autumn with over 50 learners.
National Apprenticeship Week gives us a great opportunity to showcase success, engage further with partners, talk to more businesses and we hope it will inspire more people to consider apprenticeships with Keele.”
