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Apprentice approval

Agree with the article but would make the following points: 1. When I did my broad-based engineering apprenticeship back in the '70s, many of the managers around at the time had come via the same route .. and so actually preferred the "experience-based" starters to the pure "theory-based" starters. ONC/HNC etc actually counted for something in those days! 2. What we now have is a management structure that has predominatly come through university .. and as such see non graduates as pretty much a waste of time. 3. When you add to that Government interference over the last 20 years+ and the drive towards getting an arbitrary 50% of all secondary school levers to go to university (irrespective of whether the country needed this number of graduates and what qualifications these so-called graduates then had to contribute to society), then you have issues throughout the system. 4. Government needs to FULLY support PROPER apprenticeships, we need to go back to differentiating between universities, and tech colleges etc, teachers need to provide accurate careers advice for pupils with all sorts of skills sets, and employers within manufacturing need to support this drive as well. It is no good simply having the likes of Tesco offering "apprenticeships" .. as that is not what they are. Let's get real here!

22 May 2012

1:20 pm

Apprentice approval

Agree with the article but would make the following points: 1. When I did my broad-based engineering apprenticeship back in the '70s, many of the managers around at the time had come via the same route .. and so actually preferred the "experience-based" starters to the pure "theory-based" starters. ONC/HNC etc actually counted for something in those days! 2. What we now have is a management structure that has predominatly come through university .. and as such see non graduates as pretty much a waste of time. 3. When you add to that Government interference over the last 20 years+ and the drive towards getting an arbitrary 50% of all secondary school levers to go to university (irrespective of whether the country needed this number of graduates and what qualifications these so-called graduates then had to contribute to society), then you have issues throughout the system. 4. Government needs to FULLY support PROPER apprenticeships, we need to go back to differentiating between universities, and tech colleges etc, teachers need to provide accurate careers advice for pupils with all sorts of skills sets, and employers within manufacturing need to support this drive as well. It is no good simply having the likes of Tesco offering "apprenticeships" .. as that is not what they are. Let's get real here!

22 May 2012

1:20 pm