Market Research - Level 4 Apprenticeship in Creative & Digital Media (Interactive Media Pathway)

Descriptions

In 2012, Creative Skillset Cymru successfully bid into the Welsh Government’s Sector Priority Fund Pilot 2 fund, for a 2 year pilot funded until December 2014. The pilot is split into three strands:•Level 4 Higher Level Apprenticeship in Creative and Digital Media (Interactive Media Pathway);•Level 2 Fashion and Textiles Apprenticeship Pilot;•Creative Provision – offering industry support to Creative industries courses in Further and Higher Education in Wales.This tender concerns the first strand of the pilot – the Level 4 Higher Level Apprenticeship in Creative and Digital Media (Interactive Media Pathway) which saw the establishment of this new Apprenticeship in Wales. The Apprenticeship has focused on attracting and recruiting new entrants into the creative and digital media industries and has delivered innovative training support programmes capable of raising and widening the overall skills levels of participants.The Level 4 Higher Level Apprenticeship in Creative and Digital Media qualification (http://www.afo.sscalliance.org/frameworks-library/index.cfm?id=FR02291) offers a range of units of study that can be combined to enable the qualification to be specific and relevant to the interactive media sector in Wales, and builds upon the establishment of the Level 3 Apprenticeship in Creative and Digital Media back in 2012.In February 2014 Creative Skillset Cymru commissioned an interim evaluation of the Level 4 Higher Level Apprenticeship in Creative and Digital Media (Interactive Media Pathway) pilot. The aim of the evaluation was to provide an assessment of the impact of the project to date incorporating the views of apprentices, employers and the stakeholders involved in the pilot, focussing specifically on the recruitment process of employers and apprentices to participate in the pilot programme.The interim evaluation findings suggest that good established links with industry are important in the process of recruiting employers, and states:“It would appear [therefore] that successful recruitment is not only reliant on establishing good links with industry but also on engaging in ongoing dialogue and communication to ensure that employers understand the apprenticeship, and that training providers understand the needs of employers.”This interim evaluation also reported the following observations:“Employers recruited in south Wales operate mainly within the creative and digital media sector. In north Wales the employers recruited operate within a range of different sectors but require similar skills from their apprentice – mainly to develop web and social media based activities within their business.“In general, the views of the employers on the ACDM (IMP) were very positive, with 6 out of 6 employers (100%) who responded to questions relating to this indicating that they would recommend the Level 4 Apprenticeship in Creative and Digital Media to another employer in their sector”.Employers did, however, have the following suggestions for improvement:“Increase the awareness of the scheme.”This invitation to tender for market research is part of Creative Skillset’s strategy and contractual obligation to develop the sustainability of the Apprenticeship as a crucial feature in its development and integration into mainstream education. A key recommendation of the interim evaluation of the programme was that:“Training providers need to invest more time and resources in strengthening existing links with the creative and digital media sectors to ensure that ongoing communication processes are effective.“Being able to relate the benefits of the apprenticeship to the needs of employers is key within the recruitment process. In order to do this, training providers should draw on as much of the industry engagement expertise that exists within their organisation as possible and not place too much reliance on one or two individuals.”Creative Skillset Cymru is seeking support with:•Market Research: Level 4 Creative and Digital Media Apprenticeship (Interactive Media Pathway - Wales)The research will fall into three main parts:•To support current Apprenticeship training providers in identifying creative and digital media employers pan-Wales, particularly those linked to the interactive media subsector who may be potential employers of apprentices in the future;•To identify and map training providers local to those employer clusters who may be in a position in future to deliver the Level 4 Creative and Digital Media Apprenticeship (Interactive Media Pathway) in Wales;•To identify learning and employment progression pathways for learners pursuing the Level 4 qualification in order that sustainability and growth of the qualifications can be ensured beyond the pilot programme.The final report will outline a detailed analysis of employers and training providers in Wales and suitable progression pathways.We plan to use the research to help shape future approaches, to attract future employers, providers (and eventually learners), and to support the mainstreaming and sustainability of this apprenticeship post pilot. We require all research gathered to be robust enough to stand up to scrutiny and to help support Creative Skillset Cymru to build a rationale for further development and sustainability of the programme, and to inform areas for potential future activity.Creative Skillset Cymru is working to commission all research activities/reports with the intention of publishing them, once completed. This effectively means that we would like to standardise the formatting of all our evaluation outputs. To this end we will be sharing our publication formatting guidelines with the selected supplier during the inception meeting and will expect all deliverables to adhere to these specifications.This has numerous benefits:•To increase the number of publications we develop.•To raise our profile: when bidding for research and evaluation, funders look for a track record of our work and impact.•To ensure transparency in our approach.•To enable us to share lessons from projects more widely.Market Research ObjectivesWe will work collaboratively with the chosen supplier to help refine the brief and to ensure the best outputs possible. The overall aims of the market research is to:•Identify clusters of Creative and Digital Media employers and businesses, particularly those related to interactive media pan-Wales (with particular attention to the two geographic regions/catchment areas covered by the two current training providers).•Identify training providers local to these industry employer clusters – beyond the geographic regions/catchment areas covered by the two current training providers.•Provide a full assessment and analysis of training providers’ current provision and offer in creative and digital media, including interactive media.•Identify a minimum of two further providers (in addition to those currently delivering the Level 3 and Level 4 Apprenticeships) across Wales who may be in a position to grow and deliver Creative and Digital Media Apprenticeships in the near future.•Use Creative Skillset’s kite mark, The Creative Skillset Accreditation (‘The Tick’) criteria to assist shaping the assessment and analysis of current provision.•Mapping industry and employers within each identified provider catchment area where the apprenticeship could be potentially delivered; including SMEs, independent employers in addition to larger organisations.•Produce a map of what industry looks like for providers who could potentially deliver the Level 4 Apprenticeships in Creative and Digital Media in Wales.•Provide an industry database.•Provide a training provider database.•Provide recommendations as to how providers could develop their offer post-pilot in 2014.•Identify progression pathways for learners to support the Level 4 qualification. Where can learners progress to upon completion of the Apprenticeship? – if not recruited by employers, what further learning can they access?•A full report outlining the scope and outcomes of the initiative.•Present findings to the project steering group in September 2014.ConceptWhere are the areas of potential for the sustainability and growth of the Level 4 Creative and Digital Media Apprenticeship in Wales?1.Where are the industry employers in Wales that could potentially benefit from this Apprenticeship in future?2.What is the nature of their business?3.Who are the local training providers that may be in a position to service the training element for these employers in future?4.What does the current Creative and Digital Media (including interactive media) provision look like within these providers; i.e. equipment, resources, course leaders, current industry links, current links with schools delivering creative and digital media and/or interactive media (and/or alternate pathways and methods for recruitment), Welsh language provision etc?5.What are the needs of these providers to develop further to industry standard and deliver the Level 4 Creative and Digital Media Apprenticeship in Wales and what support might they need to achieve this?6.What lessons learnt from the current provision of Creative and Digital Apprenticeships would these providers benefit from for future mainstreaming of the apprenticeship programme?7.What are the recommendations for providers to develop their offer post-pilot in 2014?8.What are the progression pathways linking into and out of the Level 4 Creative and Digital Media Apprenticeship?NOTE: To register your interest in this notice and obtain any additional information please visit the Sell2Wales Web Site at http://www.sell2wales.gov.uk/Search/Search_Switch.aspx?ID=12885.