From education to employment

Data analytics transforms DfE apprenticeship data

Mark Abrahams, Head of Research and Analytics, MWS Technology

Apprenticeship and training #EdTech company @MWSTechnology has created an interactive dashboard to make yearly @EducationGovUK Department for Education (DfE) data for England accessible to apprenticeship providers.

The feature, called the Aptem Intelligence Dashboard, or AID, and created by Head of Research and Analytics, Mark Abrahams, takes raw excel spreadsheets provided by the DfE on apprenticeship starts and turns them into searchable and cross-correlatable data.

AID is easy to access and intuitive. Providers, employers and researchers can use its functionality to identify trends in the local and national apprenticeships market.

How does it work?

Users can search for data on individual providers, standards/frameworks and local authority area. Users can compare (currently) 2017/18 to 2018/19 data. Every year, new, comparable statistics are added.

Searching by provider, users can find out the standards and frameworks the provider offers, along with numbers of starts (overall and for each standard/framework), achievement rates, Ofsted results, the total number of learners and funding allocation.

Searching by apprenticeship standard/framework, you can find out who delivers it and how many learners are on the programme.

AID also allows local and regional searches. Users can type in an area or multiple areas and find all the providers listed in that area with the number of starts. If users hover over the highlighted area on the map, it reveals general population and apprenticeship statistics. You can access a bar chart showing the apprenticeship programmes and levels for that area.

Says Abrahams:

“I had been analysing the significant amount of publicly available DfE data to help MWS colleagues and our partners in the apprenticeship sector. We decided to use Power BI so that everyone could quickly find and focus on the key information they needed.  As this is public data, we elected to make it available on the Aptem website for everyone to use.

“AID is the only example of an interactive mapping tool that reframes DfE apprenticeship data. AID is truly innovative and reflects MWS’s interest in the potential of big data and data analytics to transform the way we do training.

“AID is an evolving project, and we are adding new features and data sources as they become available. We would welcome input from users of our Dashboard for other data points they would like to see.”


Related Articles

Responses