Dyslexia

Lord Addington Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Addington]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress has been made in making apprenticeships fully accessible to those with dyslexia.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Baroness Wilcox)]

My Lords, we have been taking forward the commitment to develop an alternative way for disabled people to demonstrate their suitability for an apprenticeship. We have developed an initial recommendation. The next steps are to confirm wider endorsement of the proposed model and focus on implementation. External experts continue to advise officials on this and other disability access issues in apprenticeships. We are currently reviewing these advisory arrangements and would welcome specialist input on dyslexia.

[Lord Addington]

I thank my noble friend for that reply. Will she confirm that it is an absurdity that people can get special arrangements to help them through the A-level system whereas dyslexics are failing a communication test which they have to take in the apprenticeships process and are thus not being allowed to qualify, when direct access to this qualification would allow them to earn a living? Is this situation not an absurdity, and will the Government assure us that they will report back to the House when they have corrected it? If not, we are going to go back to it again and again.

[Baroness Wilcox]

The noble Lord is an expert in this area and has spoken to me about this question so I am able to give him my hope for the reassurance that he is asking for. He is talking about the option of key skills as opposed to functional skills in apprenticeships. We have looked at this and extended the options of key skill apprenticeships only on a temporary basis until autumn 2012, because not enough providers were geared up to offer the functional skills which we—and which I know that he and employers—actually prefer. We are well on the way to providing this. We wanted to ensure that there was continuation during this time. However, it does seem very odd that you can get into university or take your GCSE with a functional skill that is not being provided at apprenticeship level. I give the noble Lord my personal assurance that I shall make sure that we continue to address this.