Gordon Brown recognises how supporting today's young workforce is a key to tackling the downturn. Do you agree?
Posted by: Anonymous | 31.01.2010 01:35am
What is the point if you do 3 years theory in college and you have to find your own work placement which isn't there ? There has to be joined up thinking so if you are an apprentice brick laye for example; then the college arrange with a buik=lding contracter ............ woodrow wilson that thry take on apprentices otherwise kids are doing a 3 year apprenticeship with no practical experience............what a joke!
apprenticeships
Posted by: A R | 28.06.2010 01:11am
Apprenticeships
Apprenticeships will ONLY help a recovery if A) there is a job to go to, and B) employers don't use them as cheap labour as happened during mine (I'm not old at 29, my app'ship was 1997-2001 (Engineering Machining), under the Scottish MA system) (30 started in 1997 in my group, 11 finished, and from that 11, no more than 5 were what could be considered "competent persons").
The problem with the MA system is that it is up to an employer to tick off a candidate as "competent" (there is no across-the-board independent competence monitoring, where I worked apprentices were in and out almost on a conveyor belt, and "independent" competence assessment tended to be when they went to a new job, and the new employer says "sorry but...." ) - and I've seen candidates signed off as competent even when the employer KNEW FULL WELL that s/he was nowhere near ready. Second problem: No agency or authority (either Enterprise companies or SSC's) took any interest when it was brought up with them.
Third problem: Having "gained" the NVQ's (which are as valuable as the paper they're written on in my case), I find that I cannot access either update / refresher courses, and nor can I easily access help to re-train in any other sector or subjects, thus I find I'm trapped in minimum wage work, and I've wasted 4 years of my life lining my then employer's pocket.
Unless a grip is taken on this kind of treatment of apprentices, we'll ALWAYS have a skills shortage - I certainly wouldn't encourage any 16/17 year olds into apprenticeships.