Apprenticeships should be graded to differentiate between hard workers and "someone who has just plodded along", young people have urged government.
A group of young apprentices said grading similar to that used in Higher Education was needed if apprenticeships were to be ranked on the same level as a degree.
Hal Willis, a 20-year-old apprentice at Airbus and representative of the Industry Apprentice Council (IAC) told the BIS on behalf of the council: "We would prefer continual assessment throughout an Apprenticeship and those assessments should be used to form a final grade, so you can differentiate between someone that has worked really hard and someone that has just plodded along."
But fellow IAC member Sam Ball, also 20, said she believed an end of year test was not the right way to determine an apprentice’s competence or a final grade for their apprenticeship.
"Giving apprentices a test at the end of their Apprenticeship; does that not take away from what an Apprenticeship is?," she asked. "Apprenticeships are about work.”
The IAC group consists of 14 apprentices aged 18 to 24 years old, from companies including: Airbus, BAE Systems, Caunton Engineering, DAF Trucks, Ford Dealerships, Ford GB, KMF, MBDA, National Grid, Nestlé, Rolls-Royce and Vauxhall.
Many also said they wanted to have an impact on the future of their education, saying their voices needed to be heard "at the highest level".