While all major western capitalist economies have experienced a growth in the proportion of low paid, low skilled work especially within the service sector, these trends have been particularly pronounced in the UK. Accelerated by a decade of austerity they have been the deliberate result of an economic model promoted by Boris Johnson’s predecessors. […]
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/16/the-guardian-view-on-apprenticeships-failing-the-young While the headline of this morning’s Guardian’s is correct, it’s analysis falls far short……. It is not possible for the UK to emulate the German apprenticeship model. This continues to be based on a ‘social partnership’ where employers, trade unions and local state institutions work together to plan skill and employment targets, but also […]
The government has announced a further pruning of vocational and technical education. According to the DfE, there are some 12 000 different qualifications – many of which, it argues have few or no students. In this respect the decision to cull almost half of them, could as the Department claims, represent an attempt to bring […]
This week has been National Apprenticeship Week, with young people appearing on national media to promote the schemes. There are clearly some very good ones. But January also saw the release of new data on apprenticeship starts and apprentice profiles providing a very mixed picture. The good After a difficult period since the introduction of the […]
Despite being a statutory requirement, (even if LEAs and schools are without the resources, let alone the incentive to enforce it) latest figures show one in six 17-year olds, not in full-time education. As an alternative, a young person can take up employment with training, in other words some kind of apprenticeship, but only 6% […]
