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This paper reflects on changes to end-point assessment (EPA) brought about as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and considers how proposed future change will impact on training providers and employers of health apprentices.

The paper provides an analysis of apprenticeship policy, the role of EPA and consideration of assessment strategies used in higher education and health professions. Implications for policy, training providers and clinical practice are proposed.

These changes will bring the completion of EPA closer to education providers and allow them to take a more direct role within the process. Education providers will need to be issued with clear guidance to ensure regulatory compliance. The pedagogical value of EPA is questioned.

Training providers and policymakers will need to review their processes and guidance appropriately. This paper provides a summary of salient points needing consideration.

The purpose of this paper is to show how and why government discoursal constraints have obstructed the development of viable degree apprenticeships for regulated healthcare professionals working in England and suggests some ways these constraints can now be managed and overcome.

The study uses an analysis of published literature, reviews of government and health professional body policies and regulations and semi-structured interviews recorded with those leading on the development of degree apprenticeships in healthcare-regulated professions.

Once created, a bureaucracy tends to look for ways to control discourse, to sustain itself and to extend its reach. In doing so, fault lines may be exposed which undermine the position of that bureaucracy, but it will continue to control discourses to maintain power over those it requires to act. There is no pedagogical need for End Point Assessment (EPA) to measure the competence of regulated healthcare professionals. The paper produces evidence to show how meeting health professional registration requirements is a sufficient metric for measuring successful degree apprenticeship outcomes.

This paper examined current practices relating to the registered nurse and nursing associate degree apprenticeships only. The validity of EPA for measuring occupational competence should be further investigated.

The NHS and other public service organisations should use these findings to re-examine and challenge the requirements for EPA in degree apprenticeships for all regulated professions.

Understanding how “centering” bureaucracies control discourse in their interests can help those in their orbit find ways to challenge and alter the course of policy.

Traditionally, apprenticeships have been the domain of further education and skills training providers, predominately at pre-higher education levels where management, organisation, inspection and funding have little in common with those familiar to higher education. Higher level and degree apprenticeships have brought together different cultures and methods of designing, delivering and assessing knowledge, skills and behaviours, funding learners and learning providers, data reporting, quality management and its review or inspection. The purpose of this paper is to establish the primary concerns about managing quality in degree apprenticeships, the challenges the variances bring, how the challenges are being resolved and future work that may be required.

A review of a range of guidance and organisations involved in managing the quality of higher education in apprenticeships was undertaken. The primary focus is on the advice and guidance provided through the Quality Code and associated documentation, which are key to managing and assuring standards and quality in UK higher education. In addition, requirements and guidance provided through other bodies is considered along with the cross-sector groups charged with developing quality assurance processes for apprenticeships at all levels.

The paper shows a range of detailed guidance available to those entering the higher and degree apprenticeships arena and how the organisations involved in quality assurance of apprenticeships are working together to remove or mitigate concerns to ensure that quality is embedded and successfully managed.

Designing and delivering higher level and degree apprenticeships is a relatively new addition to UK higher education providers. There are long established practices to assure the quality and standards of UK higher education wherever and, however, it is delivered, in the UK, overseas and through online models. Apprenticeships across the UK have changed significantly over recent years, and new models, organisations and methods of working and funding have been introduced. This paper brings together key activity by the Quality Assurance Agency and other stakeholders to show how standards and quality can be managed and assured.

The Chartered Manager Degree Apprenticeship (CMDA) was approved for delivery in the UK in 2015 (IfATE, 2023). The CMDA offers future managers the opportunity to gain a recognised degree as well as the practical skills to thrive in today's competitive job market. A number of studies have been written on the development phase of the CMDA in various institutions, but to date no systematic review exists to provide an overview of commonalities and insights gained across these studies. This review aims to fill this gap.

A systematic literature review (SLR) was used to identify studies written on the CMDA since its introduction. In total, 12 papers met the authors' selection criteria, and thematic coding was used to analyse and present the findings.

Findings were grouped into five themes: (1) curriculum design; (2) programme delivery and support for apprentices; (3) portfolio of evidence and End Point Assessment (EPA); (4) working with employers and (5) recruitment and onboarding.

This review is the first synthesis to date of literature written on the CMDA. The authors' analysis has allowed them to formulate recommendations for future practice that will be of use to providers in the next phase of the CMDA's development.

The purpose of this paper is to present a formal framework of vulnerability to climate change, to address the conceptual confusion around vulnerability and related concepts.

The framework was developed using the method of formalisation – making structure explicit. While mathematics as a precise and general language revealed common structures in a large number of vulnerability definitions and assessments, the framework is here presented by diagrams for a non‐mathematical audience.

Vulnerability, in ordinary language, is a measure of possible future harm. Scientific vulnerability definitions from the fields of climate change, poverty, and natural hazards share and refine this structure. While theoretical definitions remain vague, operational definitions, that is, methodologies for assessing vulnerability, occur in three distinct types: evaluate harm for projected future evolutions, evaluate the current capacity to reduce harm, or combine the two. The framework identifies a lack of systematic relationship between theoretical and operational definitions.

While much conceptual literature tries to clarify vulnerability, formalisation is a new method in this interdisciplinary field. The resulting framework is an analytical tool which supports clear communication: it helps when making assumptions explicit. The mismatch between theoretical and operational definitions is not made explicit in previous work.

The purpose of this paper is to critically reflect on evidence relating to the development and delivery of apprenticeships and its potential implications for pre-registration healthcare education.

An iterative review of English language literature published after 1995 to date relating to apprentices and apprenticeships was undertaken. In total, 20 studies were identified for inclusion. Only three related to the most recent apprenticeship initiative in the UK, and the majority were UK based.

Three key themes were identified: entering an apprenticeship, the learning environment and perceptions of apprenticeships. Successful completion of an apprenticeship relies heavily on both understanding the role the apprentice is seeking to inhabit, as well as well-structured and comprehensive support whilst on the programme. These findings are then discussed with reference to professional body requirements and pre-registration education in healthcare.

Appropriate work experience and support for learning are critical to apprenticeship success and apprenticeships should be given equal status to traditional healthcare education routes.

The introduction of the Apprenticeship Levy in April 2017 (Finance Act, 2016), acknowledgement that all National Health Service Trusts will be levy payers and the introduction of targets relating to apprenticeships for public sector employers have all contributed to growing interest in the apprenticeship agenda in health and social care.

The purpose of this paper is to explore opportunities for delivering sustainable leadership education through critical reflection embedded in the framework of higher and degree apprenticeships.

This paper contributes to leadership development research that focusses on “leader becoming” as an ongoing process of situated learning (in the classroom and everyday work life). The approach to leadership development adopted in this paper proposes that sustainable leadership practices and decision making are developed when leadership learning is firmly embedded in work-based practices and critical self-reflection.

The discussion of critical reflection methods focusses on utilising the learning portfolio as a core aspect of all leadership and management apprenticeships to embed sustainable and reflective practice and facilitate situated leadership learning. The paper explores the role of training providers in actively connecting higher and degree apprenticeships to embed this model of leadership development and seeing leadership as a lifelong apprenticeship. It also highlights the potential for resistance by managers and senior leaders in seeing themselves as apprentices rather than accomplished leaders. By paying attention to issues of language and identity in this discussion, it will surface practical implications for the delivery of sustainable leadership education through the framework of apprenticeships.

This paper adds to the theoretical and practical understanding of sustainable leadership education by exploring opportunities for re-framing leadership development as a lifelong apprenticeship focussed on personal and professional development. Recognising the resistance that often exists to reflective practice within leadership development contexts, this paper further explores ways of dealing with such resistance.

This article draws on a study of best practices in work-integrated learning (WIL) identified in the Middlesex University Degree Apprenticeships Development Fund (DADF) Project, which examined their application for four public sector degree apprenticeships (DAs). The authors suggest that WIL pedagogical practices deployed to deliver DAs can bridge traditional pedagogical and occupational divisions while building institutional resilience in a post-viral world. The paper is intended to contribute to both practitioner and policy-level discourse regarding the best practice in WIL for DAs.

A literature review of key texts was used to identify “success characteristics” in WIL “signature” pedagogies, with potential applicability for DA design and delivery. These characteristics were used to frame interrogation of best pedagogical practices, using the best practice matrix developed. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with selected expert practitioners to examine their matrix responses and to discuss the researcher's initial “read-across” analysis of best practices and possible implications for pedagogical practice in WIL for DAs across other sectors. This paper also draws on feedback from employer groups who were consulted on the project report recommendations and further feedback from a national project dissemination conference in 2018. The findings from the research project have also been re-evaluated with reference to further literature in the context of the challenges presented by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

The findings from the study indicate that pedagogical best practices were to a significant degree transferable across professions and sectors; success characteristics in one pedagogical area (for example, mentoring/practice education) underpin success in another (recognition of prior learning [RPL] and practice-based assessment of achievement); success characteristics in WIL can also be applied and operated across professions and sectors to demonstrate how the best practice in WIL should be applied in the design of DAs more generally.

The original project research study focussed on WIL pedagogical practices in four specified professions across four public sectors within one institution. This approach, though limited, enabled the research study to focus on in-depth qualitative interactions with practitioners from different sectors rather than institutional differences. As a consequence, the research study was able to focus on in-depth and dynamic interrelationships in pedagogical practice from the perspective of the professions, which facilitated productive examination of similarities and differences across these professions.

The research study provided evidence of the potential value of a more explicit recognition of WIL practice in the higher education sector and how consistent approaches to WIL should inform programme design. This has potential to improve the quality of curriculum design and pedagogy across DA programmes and provide a valuable reference point for quality assuring this provision.