The Skills Funding Agency were recently requested by the Minister to prepare draft modifications to the current version of the Specification of Apprenticeship Standards for England (SASE), in accordance with section 25 of the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009.
These modifications have now been agreed with an implementation date of 6 April 2015.
The modifications will ONLY apply to all new Apprenticeship starts from 6th April 2015.
The modification means that the “5 year rule” that currently applies to the validity of GCSEs/Key Skills qualifications in English, Maths and ICT (where applicable) has now been removed.
It also brings iGCSEs and A and AS Level qualifications back into scope as previously they had to have been achieved before September 2012. This is no longer the case.
An updated version of the SASE and guidance documents can be found at SASE Feb 2015.
The Federation for Industry Skills and Standards (FISSS) have updated their Transferable Skills Guidance document and this can be accessed on the ACE Knowledge Base.
Please note that there are now 2 versions of the Transferable Skills Guidance document – one for Apprenticeship starts on, or before 5th April 2015 and the other for Apprenticeship starts on, or after 6th April 2015.
Also on the ACE Knowledge Base you will find a copy of the modified SASE and some FAQs relating to the recent modifications.
If you have any further questions relating to this issue then please contact the ACE Support Team via the online ACE Helpdesk or by calling 0300 303 4444. Alternatively, you can e-mail via ace@fisss.org.
