FAS gets a mixed Euro-fund report

Satisfaction ratings with the apprenticeship and traineeship schemes run by FAS, the state training authority, are "very high" among both employers and participants, an evaluation report by the European Social Fund (ESF) has found. The ESF has provided £184 million for Irish apprentice training since 1990, nearly 60 per cent of total expenditure.

The FAS apprenticeship programme provides alternating periods of on- and off-the-job training for 26 trades, most in the engineering and building industry, over four years. The traineeship programme is shorter, usually between six months and two years, and more flexible and also involves alternating in-centre and work-based training periods. Traineeship is very new, only having been introduced nationally in 1996 - it covers trades as different as aeronautical engineering, retail sales, software development and jewellery making.

The old `time served' apprenticeship system was condemned by a 1986 White Paper on manpower policy as costly, inflexible and inefficient. In 1993, after a lengthy consultation process, it was reformed as a standards-based system, providing seven phases of assessed on-and off-the-job training. Unlike in the past, FAS has no role in recruiting apprentices. This is now solely the responsibility of employers. There are currently just over 5,000 FAS apprentices in training (due to rise to around 7,500 by the end of the year), a huge increase over recent years. This is a direct result of rapid economic expansion, particularly the boom in the construction industry. There are around 1,000 young people on the traineeship programme.

The report by the ESF's evaluation unit has studied both programmes, although FAS emphasises that they are very different, with the traineeship programme still in the experimental stage. The report finds that family connections continue to be important in apprenticeships, with over half the apprentices surveyed saying they came from families in which there were already qualified craftworkers.

The report concludes that participation by women, people with disabilities, early school-leavers and mature entrants is "startlingly disproportionate to the total apprentice population." It says a more formally structured entry system is "urgently needed."

FAS has set a target of filling 20 per cent of all its 15,000 training places with long-term unemployed people by the end of this year, and is already close to reaching that target. However, its director of programme development, Patricia Curtin, points out that very small numbers of women in traditional trades is a European phenomenon, and many women prefer to go into `high tech' or retail areas than suffer the sexism and intimidation of a building site or an engineering works. Employers are also slow to encourage women in these areas, and only 100 FAS bursaries to women to become apprentices have been taken up. The ESF report also criticises the present four-year duration of the apprentice system, which conflicts with the FAS objective of developing flexible, industry-relevant training, and could deter other trades from seeking inclusion.

Turning to traineeship, the report says that, because employers too often demand Leaving Cert for entry to traineeship schemes, FAS is facing problems in recruiting suitable candidates. It found that less than half the employers surveyed were prepared to take on the long-term unemployed or people over 40 years of age.

It queries the appropriateness of the high educational levels of participants on traineeship courses - 76 per cent had the Leaving Cert in the scheme's first year as a national programme in 1996. It suggests that such young people should be able to find jobs for themselves in the present "buoyant labour market."

The report stresses that traineeships are part of the Government's drive to combat unemployment and argues that they should be offered to those most in need - "those who have poor qualifications, are older or long-term unemployed."

FAS has said the figures in the ESF evaluation were distorted by pressure from companies during 1997 to take on large numbers of young people with the Leaving Cert to train in `high tech' IT areas where there were skills shortages. Following negotiations with the firms involved, it says 75 per cent of them have now accepted that the Leaving Cert is not essential for a traineeship. FAS also emphasises that 40 per cent of traineeship participants are now women.

The ESF report also criticises `single company' traineeships, which big companies like IT multinationals use to train their own workforces. It says that this practice ignores the FAS policy of giving preference to unemployed people.

The flexibility of the traineeship scheme has made it increasingly popular with employers. It's clearly the training model for the future. "Over time we would see traineeship becoming the entry to work for most young people," says Curtin.