What would you say about an engineering apprentice ending up as an executive board member of a global Fortune 500 company? Or what about the thousands of contented former apprentices running, and often owning, the small- and medium-sized businesses that are the backbone of many economies?
Regrettably, I still often encounter scepticism when I spell out the merits of apprenticeships and work-readiness programmes. That’s partly due to structural factors. Grow up in Finland and there’s a 71 per cent chance you will be exposed to vocational and educational training. Reside in Cyprus, by contrast, and such opportunities are available to barely 16 per cent of young people.
Some of the disparity is due to culture and mindsets. Even today, there are still sharp differences in attitudes to vocational and educational training across the EU.
Respondents in Malta, Finland, the Czech Republic, the UK and Italy are generally very positive about the prestige and standing of such schemes, according to a survey by the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training. In France, Hungary, Belgium and the Netherlands, by contrast, reactions are significantly more negative.
What explains Europeans’ different views? Expectations play a part. Apprenticeships, be it in larger companies or small family businesses, were once the norm – think of all those European crafts and guilds where knowledge was passed on by teaching young professionals directly on the job, complementing what they learned at school.
In German-speaking Europe, that tradition has survived. Apprenticeships and schemes combining classroom learning with work experience and training retain significant prestige. In Switzerland, conventional wisdom has it that an academic student is the one taking the ‘soft’ option, whereas apprentices truly accomplish something.
But elsewhere, apprentices’ status has dropped, often victim to the supposed superiority of a more academic university training. Some young people today even say a Bachelor’s degree is no longer good enough, with a Master’s the new minimum requirement for a good job.
The quest to level out inequalities has prompted a sharp improvement in access to tertiary education worldwide but it has had the perverse effect of creating legions of highly educated academic young people – who cannot find jobs. At the same time, businesses are ringing alarm bells about declining access to young people ready to learn trades at the workplace.
Parents pushing children on to an academic path has often also meant the overriding of skills that would have best flourished in the real world, be it trade and commerce (as florists, bakers or salespeople), services (as bankers, insurance staff or civil servants) or in manufacturing.
Apprenticeships are among the answers to future demands of the labour market. They equip young people with cutting-edge skills, shape their personal characteristics and are a breeding ground for innovation, feeding off youngsters’ intuitive digital skills.
Vocational training helps young people to take responsibility early on; it teaches the importance of teamwork and instils the value of respect – whether for health and safety rules or one’s co-workers and bosses. Importantly, young people become a vital piece of the country’s production and productivity chain, earning a wage and, thus, consuming, paying taxes and building their benefits portfolio.
The advantages of such schemes go beyond improving an individual’s employability. Employers gain trained talent who have benefited from exposure to the labour market.
National and EU policymakers have started to recognise the benefits of vocational education and training. Apprenticeships may not yet be universally ‘cool’ but their star is certainly on the rise.
This week, all eyes will be on European Vocational Skills Week, an initiative designed to raise the attractiveness and status of vocational education and training and showcase excellence and quality. As an ambassador for the EU week, I am proud to share this message where and whenever I can. After all, I, too, was an apprentice once…
Those interested in finding out more on Vocational and Education Training and the 2017 European Vocational Skills Week can join the conversation on twitter @VETAmb_MT and Facebook – VET Malta Ambassador.
Stephan Howeg is chief marketing officer and communications of the Adecco Group.