To ask what you really think of apprenticeship s

I think apprenticeships are brilliant.

Different careers suit different ways of learning and routes in and I really hope that the education landscape continues to change and reflect this.

History, languages, anything culture driven, linguistics, essentially most of the arts subjects are likely best suited to university.

STEM on the other hand is very well suited to apprentices. Especially if they know what they want to do. I think if young people are not sure then a degree can keep things open and provide routes to explore but if they know what avenue they want to pursue then an apprenticeship can support that, give them a qualification and pay them. What's not to love?

One of my DC is on an apprenticeship (non degree but does have a qualification at the end), one is doing the rounds of uni open days and will go to uni, the third is a way off that yet but is possibly heading in an engineering direction so we will be encouraging them to explore apprenticeships as an alternative because the debt that uni brings now is just huge.

With a degree apprenticeship, you are going to uni. Sometimes a very good one. Plus, you are getting relevant work experience and a salary at the same time.

My 16 year old son (out of three thousand applicants) was one of 18 to successfully start an apprenticeship for a global company and had to move 200 miles away. Imagine how I felt!

Lots of graduates are unable to find work.

I think people assume they’re for people who can’t get into uni but they’re the way forward, in the future a lot of uni graduates are going to find it difficult after they graduate

There is actually a Librarian apprenticeship now, and hardly any librarianship degrees so it's gone full circle! The Aberystwyth Librarianship degree ( which I think is still the leading degree) is part time distance learning, so it's gone full circle.

Yes they were useless, and part of the reason so many complicated and onerous requirements were put into the apprenticeship programme was because so many employers took the piss. Some still do. I don't know what the answer is. Employers are treated like Gods, when they complain about young people having no skills but some ( not all by a long shot) are not prepared to put aside any time at all to train apprentices. Shelf stacking will not meet the requirements for, for example the L2 Customer Services apprenticeship. I was an apprenticeship training provider for this, amongst others and have had to sanction employers for this crap because they are wasting students time, paying them below minimum wage but not giving them time or opportunities they have to in order for them to pass the course. . I'm not sure what happened to them, they probably did the same again with another provider. There were many who got them to do work shadowing in different departments, put them through training courses, allowed them to attend workshops, gave them an afternoon off to do assignments etc and moved them onto higher levels apprenticeships. But all of that takes time. In my experience the most successful ones are where the students have to go to college to get a qualification, like the AAT. But again, that needs teachers in FE to be paid properly to want to do it. For example, for trade apprenticeships, a day at college learning how to do the job is by far the most efficient way to do it, but courses are closing due to lack of staff. I don't know what can be done about employers who take on apprentices then take the piss, because any regulations designed to stop this also affects good apprenticeship employers possibly making them too onerous to take on. Sadly I think at the end of the day we are just not a country for young people. We don't care enough about them, preferring to slag them off while shafting them at every opportunity. I'm not sure Germany for example has the same attitude to apprentices. It's a problem we've had for decades.

Many years ago there were various routes into the professions. In some of them like librarianship, accountancy and nursing you "learned on the job". That is, you took your professional exams alongside working and did most of the studying in your spare time. It was not then called an "apprenticeship" but worked in a similar way. You earned a salary, worked and took exams internatl to the profession.

In some of these (such as librarianship) all that was wiped out in the late 1970s when the new universities began to offer desgrees in library and information science. A tranche of young people emerged clutching a bit of paper we did not have. They had no experience of how to run a library and many were quickly promoted beyond the level of their experience and abilities. Those of us who had qualified by the older route and knew the job thoroughly were actually considered less well qualified.

Personally I feel that learning on the job and qualifying as you progress is a far surer route into a trade or profession than going to uni. You gain knowledge of the trade and also learn the discipline and resillience of self directed study. This is the huge advantage that an apprenciceship gives over a degree, It is a pity that more employers cannot afford to invest in young people by offering them.

Speaking as someone who were to uni inlater life to improve my qualifications and ended up doing a doctorate. I never went back to librarianship. The skills I learned as a librarian gave me a huge advantage over other undergraduates. I did not need to learn basic academic skills lsuch as how the books were arranged in the library, referencing or how to compile a bibliography.

Dd is doing an apprenticeship. She started at 16 on £5.25 an hour. Went up to £6 something in her second year. Last week it went up to £10 an hour as she turned 19.
She travels 6 times a year to college two and a half hours away for a week at a time. ( terrified me when she was 16)
She will be fully qualified come September and her place of employment have offered her a full time job- starting salary £35,000.
She'll have a necessary trade and absolutely no debt.
Win win.

I know but they used to do retail apprenticeships that were to become a shelf stacker with god knows what classroom input. I think it was a way to get cheap labour.

For me, the maths isn’t mathing for degree apprenticeships.
some seem to be 4 days working with them, with 1 day release to go to uni.
how can they possibly keep up with someone doing the same degree and just that?
unless that degree isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

I need to add "scruffy jeans" rather than just "jeans" as I know they can look quite smart!

I meant, dirty, holey, baggy jeans 🤣

Employing someone as a shop worker is just employing someone as a shop worker. Apprentices have to spend a day learning to a specification, either at work or at college and will come out with a qualification which will enable them to go onto further apprenticeships and maybe eventually a L4 ( degree level) management qualification. If you are just employed as a shop worker with few GCSEs chances are that's where you will stay. Yes some employers are crap and just employ them as cheap labour, and the apprentice ends up failing and disillusioned because they haven't been given the experience that allows them to complete the learning part of the apprenticeship, and these employers should be sanctioned. but places like Tesco, McDonald's etc have good progression routes through their apprenticeship programmes.
To answer the question, if someone has got onto a degree apprenticeship programme then they are part of an elite group. The only people 'wasting their time' are your ill informed friends with their useless opinions!

Im 39. Out of my friendship group from University / College time. The two that did apprenticeships instead are earning far more than the ones who went to university. We have similar jobs. (I went to university)

But, while recruiting for an engineering position last year I did notice that applicants with apprenticeship backgrounds were more mature, polite and had a better understanding of the subject area. So they were preferred.

We had many university grads come to interviews in jeans and they simply didn't have enough soft skills. And their knowledge of the subject area was quite lacking! (Even from the good universities!)

My son is doing an engineering apprenticeship. At 21, he will be fully qualified, with savings from what he has earned towards a house deposit or to travel if he wants that. There will be no student debt and three years of full time work history under his belt.

There is a lot of theory to learn, but if they are the kind to learn through doing, this kind of arrangement is ideal.

Downsides?

It is not an easy option academically. They have a weeks residential training every five weeks which is academically rigorous and they have to perform consistently or they risk being de-registered.

Some find the hours relentless in comparison to the school day. It is 40 hour working weeks with a week at college every five weeks. (They do accrue holiday like regular employees.)

They will be thrown in at the deep end into the world of adult full time work. Unlike full time university, most of the people around them will be older, mostly married with kids. They will need to be more proactive about carving out a social life for themselves, making new friends and meeting potential partners.

If it suits your young person, it’s a great opportunity. My son loves earning his own money and building a career at the same time. Once qualified, he is committed to his employer for a further two years. His pay rate once qualified will be as good or better than uni graduate salaries, although for others, how the pay rates compare are going to depend on what the qualification is.

Once fully qualified, my son plans to work abroad for a while. His qualification is a priority occupation for places like Australia.

My DD did something similar, but in the 2000s. She's on the same wage as those who did the degree route, without the debt.
I know someone who is doing a engineering one, it isn't easier than the University route. There doesn't seem to be much flexibility and there is a lot less sick leave than you get at University. So it needs to be the right choice.

Not everyone wants to be a CEO.

Three years slogging through accountancy exams and you decide you might want to be a Specch Therapist...

I'm not saying its an actively bad thing to do, but one of the positives of university is surely the opportunity to find out about other routes through life. My employment plans at 18 were nothing like my eventual career trajectory.

As people are expected ro stay employed for longer and longer, it seems strange to specialise earlier than we used to.

I think they're probably fantastic for certain careers. I think when they first brought them in as a concept open to things other than skilled trades, some were a bit dodgy.

Like you'd get a supermarket taking apprentices to do a role of shop worker and you'd just think, if you had vacancies for that why not just employ them normally. How much college training would you be needing to work in a supermarket?

So I was a bit sceptical about that side of it. But that was years ago. Idk about now but know they've evolved significantly.

Did she get a degree?

OP is talking about degree apprenticeships.

I've had two different careers, both of which I could have got to the same place having done an apprenticeship route in not much longer a timeframe.
I went to uni when fees were a lot less so only left with less than £9k of debt.
Given fees where they are now, long term outcomes being similar, I would certainly be more than happy and proud for my child now to go down an apprenticeship route if that's what they want.

Professional qualifications will never be wasted every CEO I know started out as an accountant.

@SpanThatWorld hopefully an apprenticeship would result in some transferable skills and also a better idea of what various roles entail. Time spent eliminating possibilities isn't necessarily time wasted.

Even if you start again from scratch at 21 you're doing it debt free and with proven ability to work and study at the same time - I don't think you're necessarily any worse off than a graduate.

It depends on the company
Some of them literally use them as cheap free labour
And some of them invest time and energy and money and training them which they expect to be reciprocated.
It’s all about finding the right one
I worked with a young girl who did an apprenticeship with the council and in theory. It looks as if she has two years of solid employment in an administration role. The reality of it is she did about two hours work a day.
And learnt absolutely nothing

My son has done a trades apprenticeship. His company paid him well above the apprentice rate and treated him well. He is now fully qualified and fully employed. He earns well and enjoys his job.

he’s a clever boy who didn’t suit further pure academic study. Instead he excelled at both practical and theory work and was the only apprentice in his cohort who passed everything first time.

My gut feel would have probably put me in the snobby camp 20+ odd years ago when I was making this choice. However, one of DH’s v good friends was a very bright girl who ‘should have’ gone to uni, but chose apprenticeship routes. She’s leapt ahead financially with money behind her, and real world job experience (not to mention the company wanting to make good on their investment). With uni so expensive and routed to careers unclear, I really think apprenticeships are the way to go.