'Partners in development' and the ETC

The Employment and Training Corporation considers the leader Partners in Development (July 15) as generally positive even though the leader writer fails to clearly distinguish between apprenticeships and training courses.

An apprenticeship is a tight mixture of on-the-job training and tuition at an educational institution, usually at an MCAST college. The ETC manages two apprenticeship schemes, Technician Apprenticeship Scheme (TAS) and Extended Skill Training Scheme (ESTS), together covering more than 29 callings. The ETC manages apprenticeship schemes separately from its courses.

Once the on-the-job training component is removed from an apprenticeship, it becomes a training course and, vice-versa, once the tuition component is removed it becomes simply a mere job experience, albeit a learning one. Both the courses and the apprenticeships should hopefully lead, quoting the editorial, "to the learning of a skill, normally this being a skill required by existing firms" and "guaranteed jobs". Nearly all the incoming apprentices are usually young school leavers with hardly any work experience while courses, which the ETC organises, cater mainly for clients already in employment and registered unemployed.

Apprenticeships in Malta are very much a reality and, in fact, support most of the training programmes, from foundation to higher national diploma level, being delivered at MCAST, namely, but not exclusively, in areas like mechanical, electrical and electronics engineering, building and construction, metal work, accounting, beauty and hairdressing, art and design.

The absolute majority of persons who undergo an apprenticeship with success have good employment prospects of full-time stable employment. In fact, most find employment directly related to the area of specialisation for which they studied although with time some tend to change their choice of occupation.

Having stated this, the ETC has been aware for some time that Maltese apprenticeships need modernising and late in 2001 set up an Apprenticeship Board with the brief to review and examine the apprenticeship system to determine whether changes are needed to ensure that these schemes will continue to provide the right balance between knowledge and skills competence and relevance to labour market needs. This board includes representatives from employers, trade unions, MCAST, the ITS and the ETC.

Presently the corporation is conducting talks with MCAST with the objective of widening the callings available in these schemes since apprenticeships can be used as a medium to overcome weaknesses and skill shortages within the labour market.

Finally, the editorial is correct in its conclusion that what is needed is for a much larger number of firms to be willing to sponsor these young persons to become skilled workers. This is the reason why certain traditional arts and crafts are on the brink of dying out, which is because there does not seem to be a big labour market need. There are not enough labour market vacancies to meet the needs of all the students presently within MCAST's Institute of Art and Design.

At the moment the corporation is striving hard to find over 500 placements in a variety of callings and employers willing to participate in this interesting and beneficial journey of learning may contact the Training Services Division on 2220 1302 for further details on how to participate in these schemes.