This Estyn report focuses on the delivery of Essential Skills Wales (ESW) qualifications in work-based learning apprenticeships.
It found that although providers are effective in enabling learners to achieve their ESW qualifications, the learning and teaching of literacy, numeracy and digital skills in apprenticeships is unhelpfully skewed towards preparation for external assessment.
There was a consistent message from learners, providers and employers that having good literacy, numeracy and digital skills is important for life and work. However, learners strongly prefer and value learning these skills through the context of their work and vocational study.
Most learners had a sound understanding of their strengths and weaknesses in literacy, numeracy and digital skills and many were clear about their progress and what they needed to do to improve. The majority made steady progress in developing the skills that were being addressed in that session.
Providers reported that failure to attain the ESW qualifications is not now a significant cause of learners not completing their overall framework. However, learners with additional learning needs or other barriers to learning such as not being a Welsh or English first language speaker may struggle to attain their ESW qualifications, and this is a barrier to them achieving overall framework success.