Apprenticeships, are they working?

Alternative to a Degree, or just making the tea?

Arriving at the workplace, a Freight-forwarding company, I sat proudly at my newly allocated desk, and sunk into my reclining swivel chair. It had been a long morning, up at 6 to get to work at 9am sharp, but I arrived bright-eyed and raring to go, if a little worse for wear from the night before; my previous workplace organised a “goodbye” for me.
We won’t go into that.
Nevertheless it was my first day on the job as an apprentice. Classed as neither being in education or in work, an apprenticeship is designed to provide a more vocational way to get a head-start in the working world, and is usually accompanied with a qualification such as an NVQ (National Vocational Qualification) or, for the higher levels, an HNC (Higher National Certificate). Championed by David Cameron in 2013, he expressed his desire that apprenticeships offered should be expanded across the country, especially in the public sector, and that a “cultural change” was taking place; attitudes being swayed regarding their importance and ability to be an alternate path into work alongside Degrees. Since then, an expansion has indeed taken place, and many apprenticeships are being offered in businesses both large and small.

However, with this expansion there seems to have been a dilution to the quality, and a potential mandate for businesses to exploit younger workers; businesses currently only have to pay £3.30 to young workers aged 16–18, and to anyone else in their first year of the apprenticeship. This has induced the spike in low-quality apprenticeships, with businesses being attracted to the idea of the low pay and government funding of £1,500 per apprentice, meaning that they are being introduced in places where traditionally the training would be take place on the job. Looking at the government website, I found a good 20% of apprenticeships in my local area were in administration, and even some in waiting and bar work! This isn’t uncommon at all, with Subway coming under fire earlier this year for advertising for the position of “Apprentice Sandwich Artist” at their Gateshead branch. They were accused of being “rip-off artists”, with national officer for Unite, Rhys McCarthy, saying that the advert “stretches the definition of apprenticeship to breaking point”.

"Your apprentice must:

• work with experienced staff
• learn job-specific skills
• study during their working week (for example, at a college or training organisation)"

Unfortunately, this is where my story comes into play again, as it had seemed I had come across one of the very culprits. Shown above, the government have listed three guidelines for employing apprentices, but it seems that these are being flagrantly ignored. I don’t know what amounts to “job-specific skills” but my task of delivering their post, however riveting it was, was probably more suited to a career at Royal Mail. I spent half the day twiddling my thumbs, and the other half cold-calling potential customers with no training or support, being told to “put the customer on hold” if I didn’t know the answer to a query they had. I left the business promptly.
In part, however, I do agree with the wage being reduced for apprentices as, similar to tuition fees in Universities, it instills a sense of the person investing in their future. The difference is however, that as apprentices aren’t classed as students, they are ineligible for government funding for accommodation, meaning that, most likely, their parents have to pick up the costs of living, drastically reducing their allure, and reducing apprenticeships’ effectiveness to compete with the University path.

While the larger, multinational companies, such as BT and Mercedes-Benz, have built a reputation on offering quality training and can afford to offer comprehensive packages and value to their apprenticeships, it seems that the smaller companies in the UK are failing to. If they are to continue to be utilised as a driving force to get the 366,000 young unemployed into work, drastic changes need to be brought about by the government to ensure that they provide, meaningful, useful skills to the workforce, with the Ofsted Chief stating in 2015 that low-quality apprenticeships are simply “wasting public funds” and devaluing the apprenticeship brand.