Gateshead College is in the top 10% of apprenticeship providers in England for a third year in a row.
The news follows statistics confirming that 80% of the college’s 1,421 apprentice learners completed their courses during the academic year 2013/14, which was considerably higher than the national average of 70%.
A number of the college’s apprenticeships showed particularly strong performances – childcare, sport, art and design, engineering, construction, health and social care, culinary arts and manufacturing were well above the national average for the same subjects.
Gateshead College’s deputy principal for curriculum and quality, Chris Toon, said the success strengthened the view that students are more likely to stay on at Gateshead and pass their qualifications than with most other providers.
He added: “These are a great set of results, reinforcing our position as one of the best apprenticeship providers in the country – for the third year in a row.
“We are clearly punching well above the national average, succeeding in ensuring that students achieve challenging apprenticeship frameworks and gain the workforce training and skills local employers and industry require and demand.”
Gateshead College currently has a thousand more apprentices than some of the other main north east FE colleges that are targeting a position in the top 10%, and has seen steady growth in its apprenticeship provision during the last few years.
Figures from research conducted by the Local Enterprise Partnership for North East England confirm that the numbers of people joining an apprenticeship scheme fell by 33% from 2010 – 2013 (from 8,780 to 5,890).
However, during 2013/14, the number of college apprentices grew by 22% with hundreds of individuals benefitting from an apprenticeship framework over that same period.