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Sam Shead
Sam Shead
Reporter
And now for the good news about UK apprenticeships
Earlier this week The Engineer’s Jon Excell rightly queried the quantity and quality of apprenticeship schemes, arguing that some schemes appear to exist in order to fudge unemployment figures.
Jon’s editorial, neatly coinciding with National Apprenticeship Week, elicited a great deal of comment, a lot of which focussed on the positive aspects of a well thought out and well executed engineering apprenticeship.
Backing this up is Rolls-Royce chief executive John Rishton, who has been widely quoted in today’s newspapers asking for engineers to be given the recognition and respect they deserve for job they do and the value it brings to the economy.
Rishton has every right to make this call, given that his company has just posted a 21 per cent rise in underlying profit before tax of £1.16bn.
Much of this success is predicated on a recruitment policy that next year will see a doubling of its apprentice intake.
Further encouragement for the engineering sector and young people wanting to swell its ranks came this week with the announcement that the National Apprenticeship Service is to work with the Baker Dearing Educational Trust (BDT) to deliver apprenticeships in University Technical Colleges.
Aston University Engineering Academy, a state funded school for 14-19 year olds, will be the first University Technical College (UTC) to deliver apprenticeships – and will act as a pilot for further apprenticeship development across all UTCs.
Speaking at the launch event earlier this week David Way, chief operating officer of National Apprenticeship Service (NAS), defined an apprenticeship as something that comes as part of employment.
’It’s employment and training. It’s not a training course. It’s employment and skills development in the workplace,’ he said.
UTCs themselves offer 14-19 year olds the opportunity to take a technically, orientated course of study at a specialist college with facilities that go beyond those a comprehensive school can offer.
The colleges are sponsored by a university, offering clear progression routes into higher education or the world of work. The sponsoring university work with the local authority and local employers to decide the specialism of the UTC, which reflects the university’s areas of excellence and local employment priorities.
Aston University Engineering Academy is working with E.ON. and EU Skills to design and develop a model apprenticeship pathway and Prof Alison Halstead, Pro Vice Chancellor of Aston University predicts that 60/180 students will go on to do apprenticeships next year.
Whilst some non-technical ‘apprenticeships’ leave themselves wide open to criticism, the emergence of the UTC apprenticeship must surely be welcomed, along with the news that many other engineering companies - far too numerous to mention here -are upping their apprentice intake.
Rolls Royce’s Rishton believes government should do more to encourage people into the industry. On this week’s evidence it seems that industry is doing a fine enough job itself.
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Readers' comments (16)
Anonymous | 10 Feb 2012 2:02 pm
Please note our well established and hugely successfull engineering apprenticeship scheme has just had the rug pulled from under it by crazy European legislation which scraps the mandatory retirement age. We had a rolling program of 12 apprentices, we never had to let anyone go after their apprenticeship. Now we have a situation where potential retirees are not commiting to going at 65 so we are unable to recruit more apprentices. Somebody in government needs to get a grip of this one urgently!
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Philip Baker | 10 Feb 2012 2:14 pm
Well done 'The Engineer' and all of those who responded with comments.
I sent your article straight to John Hayes MP and asked him to be more careful with the emphasis of his announcements.
John Hayes is old enough to know the difference between the City & Guilds backed apprenticeship, and the light weight, on the job train courses.
Both are essential but both are of widely differing levels and benefit
I suggest we all do the same in future and seek better standards of communication and fact from our elected administrators.
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Carolynne Knight | 10 Feb 2012 2:23 pm
My partenr is 68. As I write he is in the machine shop making custom prts for historic F1 cars. He's full of energy, skills and knowledge that our young computer-jockey graduates simply don't have. He loves to teach and impart his skills and enthusiasm. People like this are very much needed to bring on he upcoming generation.
With a little imagination, there is room for all to bring on this manufacturing 'revival'.
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Harold Birtwistle | 10 Feb 2012 2:57 pm
I was fortunate in having a full 5 year apprenticeship with a Philips Electrical group company. i was given a 5 year timetable which took me through every department and every activity.
If Academia becomes involved in apprenticeships it's essential that the mentors are time served because they're the only people who understand fully what's needed and who won't limit themselves to the theoretical. The trainees must get practical experience, warts and all
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Jeff Scarr FInstMC | 10 Feb 2012 3:09 pm
A few years ago in good Engineering firms and Industries we used to train the graduate and aspiring technicians using the experienced Engineers who were in their last years before retiring. They passed on their knowledge and experience, and this helped the business and the aspiree's, to stop reinventing the wheel. Both parties fed off each other with the younger aspiring engineers utilising modern techniques to enhance the ideas of the experienced Engineer, but due to financial restraints we appear in general, to have ceased this practice.
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David Evans | 10 Feb 2012 3:10 pm
Engineers will only have status and attract young people when graduate engineers are paid according to their value. If RR set the starting salary at £40k or whatever to match the City, then all the brightest students would switch to engineering.
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S. Martin | 10 Feb 2012 3:18 pm
The main issue is getting people away from the instant fame by any means syndrome many youngsters seem to suffer. Then we have the instant get rich philosophies of many youngsters, by the time they find out there's no path to getting rich quickly, its too late for them to try an apprenticeship.
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Stephen B Whiteley | 10 Feb 2012 4:21 pm
Professional engineers have been moaning about salary levels since I was an apprentice in 1951. I know none who in retirement have anything but a pleasant well funded lifestyle. Many of my friends in the local Probus Club (Professional & Businessmen's Club) turn out to be retired from the engineering profession and socialise on equal terms with chemists, accountants, doctors, broadcasters, lawyers, estate agents etc.. Stop moaning, behave in a way that brings respect to the profession and when you rise to a position of authority do your best to raise your junior engineer's salaries. Don't do, as many do, and say I had it tough so now it is someone else's turn.
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Monty | 10 Feb 2012 4:59 pm
@David Evans: I agreed with you right up until you said "set the starting salary at £40k or whatever to match the City" at which point I coughed into my coffee. Within the existing Western system, you’ll never get engineering salaries to compete with ‘the City’ (by which I assume you mean the bankers etc.) – it’s not right, we’re not ‘worth less than them’ but it’s just never going to fly.
Fortunately, the kind of people we need for engineering are unlikely to be the same sort that would fancy a job in banking, and probably vice versa too.
All the same, relatively crap salaries remains an issue in engineering in the UK in particular, aided and abetted by a curious lack of respect for the profession that built Britain up so well in the first place, and could yet save it from terminal decline.
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ALAN DUTTON C.Eng. | 10 Feb 2012 5:58 pm
I am a retired Engineer with over 40 years experience in Design and Manufacture. I was lucky to have excellent engineers to teach me what the job was all about. I am trying my best to give back to future generations by being a Science Ambassador for STEMNET. I visit schools on regular basis but am always shocked to find how little the teachers know about modern engineering.Very few have been involved in real world of Wealth Creation. They do not in my opinion impart a true picture of our profession. They think that engineering is a dirty not worth while job as they lecture from books which are so outdated that it makes my blood boil.The seed is shown well and truely when I talk to pupils about engineering when their knowledge goes no further than motor mechnics.Little is seemily taught about the new technologies. If this is not rectified quickly then I feel that young people will be put off applying for apprenticiships.On the point of salaries, i agree with previous comments that these should be corrected especially as bankers have let the country down , being still paid high salaries and bonus for doing a very pooer job. The engineers of the future will have to supply the new wealth for the country and should be paid at the top end of the salary table of jobs. This is a major problem I have in explaining engineering to young people as the question of how much do engineers earn is on top of the agenda with all they ask.
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