An apprenticeship college training future airport staff has been criticised for failing to adequately educate students about the risks of radicalisation and extremism.

Mooreskills Limited Training Provider, in Wirral, has been slammed by education watchdog Ofsted, who said apprentices did not gain “sufficient awareness” of extremism and radicalisation while undertaking their courses.

The Birkenhead based establishment is funded through the Government’s apprenticeship levy and provides training for roles in sectors such as administration, team leading, business management and retail.

There are currently 177 apprentices being trained by Mooreskills, the majority of whom are employed by airports throughout the country.

An Ofsted inspection report, published on Monday, said staff “lack sufficient skills” to develop apprentices’ understanding of the risks “associated with radicalisation and extremism in their local area or place of work.”

It said trainers did discuss their “prevent” duty with apprentices during reviews, but that students were not “sufficiently aware” of risks associated with radicalisation or extremism.

It said apprentices who work in airports undergo additional training from their employers relating to “high-level security risks”, and as a result developed an “in-depth understanding and knowledge of potential risks in their working environment.”

However it said Mooreskills needed to improve how it dealt with the personal development, behaviour and welfare of apprentices under their supervision and and slapped it with an Inadequate rating.

This was just one of a serious of weaknesses that led to the provider being hit with the lowest Ofsted rating.

Levelling a stinging criticism at the quality of teaching, the report said apprentices received a “poor quality education and training” resulting in their work being “too often of a poor standard” .

It said too many apprentices were making “slow or very slow” progress, with almost half failing to achieve their qualification within the time planned.

Inspectors criticised the training provider’s “weak” assessment practice, which they said was prohibiting apprentices from knowing how to improve.

They also expressed concern about a “significant minority” of apprentices who left their programme before completing their qualification, and said measure to improve students basic maths, ICT and English skills were poor.

Many weaknesses identified in the Ofsted report were flagged up by the watchdog following a monitoring visit to Mooreskills last year.

Monitoring visits are a special type of inspection for newly funded apprenticeship training providers that have been delivering level 2 to 5 apprenticeships since April 2017, when the Government introduced an apprenticeship levy on UK employers to fund new apprenticeships

Hitting out at the bosses who run Mooreskills, the Ofsted inspector said they had not acted quick enough to improve weaknesses identified after their monitoring visit last year.

The report said: “Directors and managers have not acted quickly enough to accurately assess the quality of apprenticeship provision. Consequently, actions to bring about improvements to the significant weaknesses that exist have been too slow. Managers have put in place a quality improvement plan but they are too optimistic of the impact that their actions have had on improving the quality of apprenticeship programmes.”

However, while the report was largely negative, some strengths were identified.

Despite the extremism concerns, Ofsted said safeguarding in place was effective and that apprentices working in airports “develop a good understanding of fundamental British values”.

It said certain apprenticeship programmes – such as level 3 and 4 Management – had stronger outcomes than others, and said directors of Mooreskills had effective working partnerships with employers in the airport industry.

It urged the training provider to implement a number of improvements relating to governance and quality of teaching.

Mooreskills limited declined to comment.