‘Prentices’ make a comeback

A rebirth of apprenticeships is planned for the 21st Century, rekindling the spirit if not the onerous obligations of the Middle Ages when a period of service as a learner of a trade or craft was first formalised. Report by Sue Mann

Apprenticeship numbers are at all time high, with around 240,000 started in the academic year 2008/09.
To top this, the Government announced a £140m plan last January to fund an additional 35,000 ‘starts’ or apprenticeship places in the current academic year (2009/10). Add all this together, and more than a quarter of a million people are currently participating in apprenticeship programmes in Britain, combining work and learning to develop skills in some 180 different jobs. These include jobs in the service sector as well as the more traditional craft and skill trades of old.

Apprenticeships are a key part of the Government’s post-16 education offer and a central element in its commitment to increase skills levels in the economy. The strategy was outlined in a report published in January last year by the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (now the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills), and the Department for Children, Schools and Families.

According to the Nuffield Review (www.ox.ac.uk), apprenticeships have a vital role to play in addressing skills shortages. The Nuffield Foundation’s report, published last year, was the largest independent review of education and training for 14-19 year-olds in England and Wales for 50 years.
It suggests that with the right strategies in place apprenticeships might contribute to increasing participation rates of 17-year-olds in education and training to 90 per cent by 2015.

Apprenticeships are perceived by the Government as a mainstream option for all young people and for adults in England. The plan is that within the next decade one in five young people will be able to take up an apprenticeship.

From August 2009, the minimum wage for an apprentice, with a firm receiving funding from Government, was increased to £95 a week, benefiting an estimated 26,000 apprentices, mostly in less well paid sectors such as hairdressing and social care, 90 per cent of whom are women.
Average net earnings are £170 a week.

The number of people taking up apprenticeships has trebled since 1997 (just about their lowest point in recent times), says the Government. Completions are also increasing, with almost 70 per cent of people now finishing their apprenticeship compared to just over 20 per cent a few years ago.

Apprenticeships are the very lifeblood of many traditional sectors, including engineering and manufacturing. One of the scheme’s biggest fans is Sir Alan Jones who started his career as an apprentice at Vauxhall Motors in Luton.

“Apprenticeships are one step on the career ladder, and an opportunity to develop and to stimulate individuals to go on and do something else,” says Sir Alan. “It is wrong to look on it as a singular event. It is a step in life that can be followed up with other learning steps to suit the individual and their career aspirations. It is about the development of the individual, which they will use in the future with whatever opportunity arises.”

He built his career in the motor manufacturing sector, becoming MD, then Chairman of Toyota Motor Manufacturing (UK) Ltd. Sir Alan is now senior executive advisor to Toyota Motor Europe and Chairman Emeritus of Toyota in the UK.

Since 2006 he has combined these roles with chairing Semta (www.semta.org.uk), the sector skills council for Science, Engineering, and Manufacturing Technologies, supporting 14-19 Diplomas and as an Apprenticeship Ambassador – a member of the Apprenticeship Ambassadors Network (www.employersforapprentices.gov.uk).

“Business spends £40bn a year on education and training and employers are willing to commit because they know their people are the best natural resource they have,” says Sir Alan.
“In the engineering sector, the number of apprenticeships rose to 14,000 in 2007-08, which was above target. This year we are running below target.”

He sees such schemes as a race against time to replace an ageing population of skilled workers in the sector who will be retiring over the next few years. It also addresses an existing skills deficit. Sir Alan says we need to equip people now with the skills they will need when the recession finally bottoms out.

CMI CEO Ruth Spellman OBE CCMI agrees. “This is a good time for companies to think about taking on apprentices. Those companies that are already committed to the apprenticeship scheme see the payback in terms of improved productivity and more satisfied customers.
“We are facing a skills shortage in this country, exacerbated by cutbacks on investment in training and development due to the recession. We need to increase our investment in skills development. The apprenticeship scheme, with government support, is a great vehicle for doing this,” says Ruth Spellman.

Sir Alan is very much against pigeonholing apprenticeships for the less able academically and argues that they are for anyone and everyone interested in learning how to do a job combined with learning the theory behind what they are doing.
“This is what appealed to me when I was a young apprentice of 16 starting out on the shopfloor at Vauxhall. They are such a fantastic way of educating people because apprentices are doing something practical and useful but they are also going to college to study and in that powerful way bringing theory and practice together.
“We are sending more and more young people to university for three years when perhaps they could be doing an apprenticeship. Either way, there is no guarantee of a job at the end but at least with an apprenticeship you come out with a balanced set of skills that you already know how to apply. In all fairness, when young people come out of university they don’t necessarily have the skills for life which they will need in today’s job market.”

(Extract from article on apprenticeships in Professional Manager, January 2010)

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